Bible Commentaries

Phases of Divine Purpose

Isaiah 9:1-7

This is confessedly a chapter most difficult of interpretation. It is evidently detached from some other chapter; the opening word suggests this; that opening word is "Nevertheless." Let us read the last verse of the preceding chapter:—

"And they shall look unto the earth; and behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven to darkness" ( Isaiah 8:22).

"Nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations." ( Isaiah 9:1)

The idea is that the whole land of Israel had seen the extreme point of distress and desolation, and that hereafter the gloom was to disappear, and the full light would shine upon the very land which had been clouded with despair. The ablest translation of the first verse would seem to be this: "Surely there was no gloom to her that was afflicted. In the former time he brought shame on the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali; but in the latter he bringeth honour on the way by the sea, beyond Jordan, the circuit of the Gentiles." The Revised Version makes no substantial difference in the translation. "Zebulun"—what association have we with that word? We have read it somewhere. Was it not in the Gospels, whilst we were perusing the record of the life of Christ upon the earth? Zebulun and the land of Naphtali were the parts afterwards known as Upper and Lower Galilee. Under this designation we seem to know both localities familiarly. Was not Nazareth in Zebulun? and was not our Lord called a Nazarene? Who shall say that there are not mysteries in Providence—things we pass by at the time, but upon which we recur with larger delight, fuller intelligence, and greater capacity of spiritual understanding? This is always occurring in the history of the world. Again and again we come upon such expressions as, "Then remembered they." For the time being the incident had lost recollection, it had quite departed from the memory; but some other incident arose which had a resurrectional effect upon the past: "When, therefore, he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them." So history is the interpreter of history; we must take the present as a lamp to hold over the far past. Tomorrow will interpret a good deal of what has happened under the darkness of to-day. The land of Zebulun and of Naphtali was to be the focal point of divine wealth and blessing.

"The sea,"—what sea? The Bible is often elliptical in its references. It says "the river," as if every one knew what river was meant; as if there were but one great river rolling through the earth: it need not be named, surely some intelligence must be assumed on the part of the reader and the hearer. And now we read of "the sea": a wonderful sea; not large, but full of association, full of history,—the "sea" we have known from the beginning of our study, called the sea of Chinnereth in Numbers 34:11, the sea of Galilee and the sea of Tiberias in John vi. i, and Gennesaret in Mark 6:53. Names change, but the old waters roll in their old channels, not knowing that men are giving them fancy-names, battling about them, and determining great imperial and political rights by the banks within which they flow. Men have named the stars, and so singularly are we constituted that we find it sometimes difficult to dissociate the name from the planet; so we say, with a show of great learning and familiarity, That is Mars and that is Venus, and yonder solemn eye that seems to survey the whole field of night is Jupiter. We imagine that these stars will recognise their own names; whereas they would be as steady in their places, as faithful in their revolutions, if we took their names away and addressed them no more. The nightingale does not sing because we listen. A wondrous independence there is in nature,—an independence that sometimes affrights us, for we are accustomed to think ourselves of importance, and that the sun rises to hear the song of chanticleer. It is not so. Have not many truths had fancy names given to them? If men have named rivers, and seas, and continents, and stars, may they not have named dogmas, principles, truths, philosophies, doctrines? and may we not have come to understand that the one is the other, and that if the name be interfered with, the planetary truth is disturbed on its throne? Oh that men were wise!

"As in the day of Midian" ( Isaiah 9:4). What day was that? We have read about it, and we ought to know the reference. The victory of Gideon over the Midianites was one of the most conspicuous instances of valour and military success in all Biblical history, the record of which is to be found in Judges 8:24-27. Great historical events should abide thus; old history should not be lost. Men make little phrases of this kind like refrains to a song—"As in the day of Midian." That is the right use of history. The God that enabled me to kill the lion and the bear will make this uncircumcised Philistine a child in my hands: the Lord that gave me victory in the day of Midian will enable me to set my foot upon the neck of every foe. Turn history into music; turn solemn memories into joyous inspirations, and thus make yesterday supply bread for to-day's hunger.

In the fifth verse we read:—

"For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood; but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire." ( Isaiah 9:5)

It has been submitted that a better rendering is this: "Every boot of the warrior that tramps noisily and the cloak rolled in blood shall be for burning as fuel for fire." The soldier wears his tall boot, and as his foot comes down on the earth he makes it ring again; and hearing an army pass by who would suppose that the earth will survive the cruel tramp? Religious inspiration lifts men so high as to enable them to despise the pomp and circumstance of war; every boot of the warrior that tramps noisily, and the cloak rolled in blood, which men would gather up and preserve in museums, and show to admiring ages, shall be gathered up by the hand of time and thrust into the middle of the hottest fire. All such relics were made for burning. In our patriotic folly, our exuberant and intoxicated zeal, we gather the boots of warriors, and the cloaks of conquerors, and the tattered banners of famous fields, and all but worship them: underneath the whole pile should be written, "These are for burning as fuel for fire."

Let us now, advancing from these points of criticism, look at some of the abiding doctrines and illustrations suggested by this noblest effort of the prophet's imagination. Isaiah's wing never takes a higher flight than it does in this prevision of the centuries. Observe, the divine purpose has never been satisfied, if we may so say, with darkness, judgment, desolation; the Lord has never said, I have made an end of that wicked world, and now, having blotted it out of the firmament, I shall be at peace. Judgment is his strange work. He never turns aside from a crushed sinner, saying, There is the proof of my omnipotence; I will return to that place: the sinner withers under my curse. Nothing of the kind ever occurs in the record of what we may call the divine experience. When God has judged a man he would seem to return to see what effect the judgment has had, if haply he may find some sign of awakening feeling of loyalty and filial submission. When God cuts down a tree he says, Perhaps it may sprout again; the poor little offending shrub must have another chance. God delights not in judgment, destruction, punishment; he has no pleasure in death. What, then, has been God's feeling? It has been always a feeling of solicitude and yearning to bless the nations, saying, How can I surprise them with fuller light? how can I amaze them with redundance of gladness? I will dig about the tree and do what in me lies, to nurture it, and strengthen it, and culture it; next year it may bear fruit. This is the spirit of the divine gospel; this is the meaning of the whole plan of Providence. We shall do wrong it we suppose that pity comes in only with the historical Christ, that compassion was born on Christmas Day. Every deed of God in relation to man holds within itself the Cross and priesthood of Christ; so far will we go in accepting all the mystery of evolution. Keeping within the circle which we know as the human circle, we are prepared to say that in every providence there is a Calvary, in every deed of love there is the beginning and pledge of an atonement, on the largest scale, involving the destiny of the race. Doth not the goodness of God lead you to repentance? Destruction was easy: restoration is the difficulty. It is nothing to perform a miracle of darkness. For that miracle God has but to withhold the sun. But how to keep the sun in his place; how to preserve the monotony of graciousness, the permanence of goodness; how to run the days into one another, so that at last they shall be a piece of tesselated mercy and compassion, a mosaic wrought by invisible fingers, and meant to impress the observer with a sense of design, Isaiah 9:2).

No contrast can be more striking; therefore this is the one God has chosen whereby to represent the divine movement: God is associated with light, and all evil is associated with darkness. What is light? Only those who have been long in darkness know what the morning is. It is nothing to those who go to rest healthily, and passing through a dreamless sleep, open their eyes to find that nature has been busy all the time, and that all things are to-day as they were yesterday. Men who sleep and rise so know nothing about the light. Could a Isaiah 9:6).

It is not necessary to suppose that the prophet knew the literal meaning of his own words. He is but a poor preacher who knows all that he has said in his sermon. Had Isaiah done Judges 13:18 : "The angel of the Lord said unto Manoah, Why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is "secret?"—the same Hebrew word that is rendered in the text "Wonderful"; so we might read, "The angel of the Lord said unto him, Why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is Wonderful." Let us say again and again, there has always been a spectral presence in history, a ghost, an anonymous ministry; something that comes and goes in flashes of light, in frowns of darkness, in whispered blessings, in dreams that make the night glow above the brightness of a summer day.

Not only must he fill the imagination, he must satisfy the judgment. His name, therefore, is not only Wonderful, but "Counseller," the fountain of wisdom and understanding, the mind that rules over all things with perfectness of mastery, that attests everything by the eternal meridian, and that looks for righteousness. Not only must he be Wonderful, and not only must he satisfy the judgment, he must also satisfy the religious instinct, so he is called "The Mighty God." It is not enough to describe God without epithetic terms. Sometimes we say, Why utter such words as, Thou infinite, eternal, ever-blessed God?—because we are so constituted in this infantile state of being that we need a ladder of adjectives to get up to our little conception of that which is inconceivable. You cannot limit "love" in its syntax. You can write grammars for pedants, but when the heart burns, when all love turns the heart to divinest uses, then we use redundance of words, because we require all possible multiplications of terms in order to give but a dim hint of the rapture which makes our souls ecstatic.

Not only Isaiah 9:1 to Isaiah 10:4

There is a very striking expression in the Isaiah 9:11 : "The Lord shall set up the adversaries." "Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?" Does God employ evil spirits, evil men? Is it true that he maketh the wrath of man to praise him, and that he restrains the remainder thereof, and keeps it back for use upon occasion? Does he use up the very hell which sin has made, turning its heat into uses intended for judgment and penalty, and through this process intended also for repentance and reclamation? It is a wonderful universe. "The Lord shall set up the adversaries." This accounts for many oppositions which otherwise would be without explanation. We wonder why such and such people should be opposed to us; on the face of the occasion there is nothing to account for the hostility; in fact, there may be possibly something which ought to operate in another direction, making them rather friends and comrades than enemies; yet there they are, in battle array, looking upon us jealously, speaking of us falsely, endeavouring to ensnare our steps, to frustrate our purposes, and to make our life a misery. Attempt to conciliate them, and all your approaches do but add to the malignity of their detestation. We are not to look upon these things as merely human, coming and going by an uncalculated law, an operation of chance or fortuity; we are to ask for discerning eyes that look beneath surfaces, and find the spring of causes. The people themselves, too, are at a loss to explain their hostility: they cannot give reasons in regular numeration, gathering themselves up into a final and representative reason; yet they know that their hearts are simply set against us in a deadly attitude. Ask them questions about this opposition, and they will confess themselves bewildered; they daily look round for causes, and find none; yet they say they cannot restrain the dislike, and they must force it into forms of opposition about whose urgency and determinateness there can be no mistake. How is all this? Is it not the Lord reigning even here? God means to chasten us, to make us feel that there are other people in the world beside ourselves, and that we have no right to all the room, and no claim that can be maintained to all the property. Thus we teach one another by sometimes opposing one another. We are brought to chastening and sobriety and refinement by attritions and oppositions that are, from a human point of view, utterly unaccountable. The Bible never hesitates to trace the whole set and meaning of providence to the Lord himself: he sends the plague, the pestilence, the darkness, all the flies and frogs that desolated old Egypt; he still is the Author of gale, and flood, and famine, and pestilence. We have amused ourselves by deceiving ourselves, by discovering a thousand secondary causes, and seeking, piously or impiously, to relieve providence of the responsibility of the great epidemic. Within given limits all we say may be perfectly true; we are great in phenomena, we have a genius in the arrangement of detail; but, after all, above all, and beneath all, is the mysterious life, the omnipotence of God, the judgment between right and wrong that plays upon the universe as upon an obedient instrument,—now evoking from it black frowning thunder, and now making it tremble with music that children love, and that sweetest mothers want all their babes to hear. Who can be so gentle, so condescending, so tender as the everlasting Father?

In this section we come upon a word which may be regarded as a refrain—"For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still" ( Isaiah 9:12). In the seventeenth verse the refrain is repeated; in the twenty-first verse we find it again; and once more ( Isaiah 10:4) the solemn words roll in upon our attention: "For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still." There must be some cause for this. Is the cause concealed? On the contrary, it is written in boldest capitals, so that the dimmest eyes may see it all, in every palpitating, burning syllable. Let us make ourselves acquainted with the cause, lest we judge God harshly by wondering that his hand should be stretched out in judgment rather than stretched out that he may touch the nations with a sceptre of mercy.

"The people turneth not unto him that smiteth them" ( Isaiah 9:13). That is one element of the cause of this judgment. They do not kiss the rod: they see it to be a rod only; they do not understand that judgment is the severe aspect of mercy, and that without mercy there could be no real judgment. There might be condemnation, destruction, annihilation, but "judgment" is a combined or compound term, involving in all its rich music every possible utterance of law and grace and song and hope. Why do we not turn to him who smites us, and kiss the rod; yea, kiss the hand that wields it? Why do we not say, Thy judgments are true and righteous altogether, thou Lord most High: health gone, chairs vacated, fireside emptied; all is right, and all is hard to bear: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord? Yea, the submissive heart may go further, and say, I have no right to any tittle that has been taken from me; it was really not mine; the mistake was that I thought it belonged to me, and that I could establish a claim to its proprietorship and retention: whereas I see now that I have nothing that I have not received, that I never had anything that was not given to me or lent to me, or of which I was not put in trust and stewardship. Thou hast taken it all away; I know it is not because I have prayed too much, but because I have sinned beyond measure. When a man thus kisses the hand that wields the rod, the rod blossoms, and God's judgment becomes God's grace.

"The leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed" ( Isaiah 9:16).

That is another explanation of the cause. The displeasure is not superficial or incidental, involving only a few of the weaker sort of people; the displeasure has attacked the very centres of social dignity, social thought, and social influence. The leaders have fallen: what can the followers do? Howl, fir tree, for the cedar has fallen. In ancient times the people were accustomed to put the statues of their princes and leaders close to fountains and springing waters; they thought the association good, the alliance seemed to be natural and suggestive: for these men were fountains of pure water, springs of Isaiah 9:17).

This is a continuation of the explanation of the cause of the divine judgment. Mark the completeness of the statement: it is "every one." We have read elsewhere, "There is none righteous, no, not one." We are familiar with the expression that the Lord looked down from heaven to see if there were any that were righteous and that did good, and whose thoughts were towards himself in all the simplicity of trust and in all the ardour of prayer, and he himself, reporting upon the moral state of the world, said, They have all turned aside. In our high confessions, sometimes perhaps thoughtlessly, yet after a moment's reflection most thoughtfully, we have said, "All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way." "Every one is an hypocrite and an evildoer, and every mouth speaketh folly." Does not the word "folly" seem to be too weak a word with which to conclude that indictment? "Hypocrite," "evildoer," "folly"—does not the series run in the wrong direction? So it may appear in the translation, but the word for "folly" should be "blasphemy." "Every one is an hypocrite and an evildoer, and every mouth speaketh blasphemy:" the world has become brazen-faced in iniquity, shameless in sin; an oath shall now be uttered where once it would only have been whispered, and men shall speak openly of forbidden things as if they were talking the conventional language of the day. The devil drives his scholars fast; he does not keep school for nothing; he means to turn out experts; he listens to our profane rhetoric, and in proportion as we become eloquent in the utterance of his language does he give us prize, and certificate, and honour, and write down our names in the list of those who have taken high positions in the examinations of hell. "For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still." That is right. If his anger had been turned away, he would not have been God; if his hand had not been stretched out, even farther and farther still in presence of such wickedness, then he would have forfeited his right to sit upon the throne of the universe. God cannot yield; righteousness can never compound; there is no compromise in truth: the whole controversy must be settled upon principles that are fundamental, all-involving, and eternal, and then it will be for ever settled.

The Lord will show how the judgment will take effect—"Therefore the Lord will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush, in one day" ( Isaiah 9:14). The explanation is given partly in Isaiah 9:15, "The ancient and honourable, he is the head; and the prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail." "Branch and rush"—the allusion is to the beauteous palm-tree: it shall be cut down notwithstanding its beauty; and the "rush"—the common growths round about it, entangled roots, poor miserable shrubs that crowd and cumber the earth—branch and rush cannot stand before God's sword and fire: everything that is wrong goes down in a common destruction. Judgment obliterates our classifications. When judgment begins at the house of God, the meanest man and the loftiest go for nothing before the fire of that holy wrath. It is well that now and again all our classifications should be destroyed. We have made too much of them; we have designated this and that as reputable and respectable and good, whereas it was only relatively such, and not really. When God arises to shake terribly the earth, tower, and temple, and town, and meanest hut, all reel under the tremendous shock. "God is no respecter of persons." He will not spare the corrupt judge and punish the meaner criminals; rather will he say, The greater the criminal's advantages the meaner is the criminal himself: he ought to have known better; he had every opportunity of knowing better; he sinned away his advantages, and therefore his downfall could be none to mitigate or deplore.

"The Lord shall have no joy in their young men" ( Isaiah 9:17).

The meaning is full of suggestion. God delights in the young. God has made the young a ministry of instruction and comfort to old age. God keeps the world young by keeping children in it, and helpless ones. But God shall cease to see in young men any hope for the future. Once he would have done Isaiah 9:19). How often have we seen when men have fallen into wrong relations to God they have fallen also into wrong relations to one another; all pledges are broken up, all covenants are destroyed, all understandings as to concession and compromise and give-and-take,—all these things disappear, and man flies at the throat of man like wild beast at wild beast. How man can sink! Why can he sink so far? Because he has risen so high: the inverted tree we see in the calm lake indicates the height of that tree as it lifts itself up towards the welcoming and blessing sun. "He shall eat on the left hand, and they shall not be satisfied" ( Isaiah 9:20). This is the mockery of God. This is how God taunts men. "They shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm." A man shall play the cannibal upon himself. Literally, every man shall fly at every other man's arm, and every man shall be eating human flesh, for there is nothing else to eat.

Then, too, there is to be internecine war: Manasseh shall fly at Ephraim, and Ephraim at Isaiah 9:21). Do not blame the judgment, blame the sin; do not say, How harsh is God, say, How corrupt, how blasphemous is man!

"Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed" ( Isaiah 10:1).

The Lord's voice is always for righteousness. What is it that is denounced? It is the very thing that is to be denounced evermore. There is nothing local or temporary in this cause of divine offence. The Lord is against all unrighteous decrees, unnatural alliances, and evil compacts. This is the very glory of the majesty of omnipotence, that it is enlisted against every form of evil and wrong. Then—"Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed"—scribes or registrars who preserve all the forms of the court, and keep their pens busy upon the court register, writing down every case, and appearing to do the business correctly and thoughtfully; and yet all the while these very registrars were themselves plotting "to take away the right from the poor, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless." The court of law was turned into a means of robbery, as it is in nearly every country under the sun. The scribes who wrote down the law were men who secretly or overtly broke it; the judge used his ermine as a cloak, that under its concealment he might thrust his hand further into the property of those who had no helper. "For all this his anger is not turned away." Blessed be his name! Oh, burn thou against us all; mighty, awful, holy God, burn more and more, until we learn by fire what we can never learn by pity. The Lord speaks evermore for the poor, for the widow, for the fatherless, for the helpless. Here we pause, as we have often done before in these readings, to say, How grand is the moral tone of the Bible; how sweetly does God speak for truth and righteousness; how condescendingly does he enlist omnipotence on the side of innocent helplessness.

Now we come upon an awful irony:—

"What will ye do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which shall come from far? to whom will ye flee for help? and where will ye leave your glory?" ( Isaiah 10:3).

This is more difficult to bear than was the fire of judgment—this spectral tone, this irony from behind the clouds, this mockery that makes our marrow cold. "What will ye do?" What is your last resource? When it becomes your turn to play in this great game, what move will you take? That hour comes in all life. For a long time men can be moving to and fro, and changing their position, and trying their policy, and deceiving even the very elect by the agility of their movements; but there comes a time when the last step must be taken, the last hand must be shown, the last declaration must be made. You have sinned away—so the impeachment would seem to say—the day of judgment; you have mocked righteousness; you have turned the sanctuary into a school of blasphemy; you have robbed the poor, the widow, the fatherless; you have trodden down every thing of beauty that God planted upon the earth, and you would have blackened the stars with night if your evil hands could have reached them! Now there has come the critical moment of agony, and the question 2 Kings 18:13-17; Isaiah 36:1-2]. But then, it has been remarked, Sennacherib advanced from the south-west, i.e. from the road leading to Egypt; while the route so vividly described by the prophet is from the north-east. Expositors therefore have generally contented themselves with calling the description "ideal." It depicts such an approach as the Assyrian king might have made, had he come from that quarter! But now we know that there was another invasion before that of Sennacherib."—Rev. S. G. Green, D.P.

"Handfuls of Purpose"

For All Gleaners

"For the leaders of this people cause them to err."— Isaiah 9:16

This is the last result of debased society. When the light that is in us becomes darkness, how great is that darkness! Isaiah and Jeremiah both regard as utterly contemptible and worthless those who professed to be spiritual guides and yet who guided themselves by selfish considerations. Whether this verse was really in the original text or whether it was a merely marginal note, it is absolutely certain that the spirit of it is proved by the history of all ages. The verse may therefore be used by way of accommodation to show that even our leaders and guides are not to be trusted simply because they happen to sustain official positions. The law and the testimony may always be trusted: they cannot be bribed, they cannot be perverted, except by the basest quality of mind; the people must go to the law and to the testimony for themselves, often putting aside teacher and priest that they may see the living word with their own eyes. Even leadership is not exempt from temptation. The greatest statesmen may have objects of their own to gain. On the finest robe of patriotism there may be spots which only the divine eyes can detect. We should therefore be Bible-readers on our own account; not only readers of the mere letter, but readers of the sum total. Society may be said to be shaken at its very base when its great men allow their minds to be corrupted. This is true politically, but how much more true in relation to all matters that are spiritual and divine. When the pulpit is wrong how can the pew be right? The prophet who has beclouded his vision, or so distorted it as to accommodate it to human wish and human conceit, is likely to acquire an immediate influence, simply because the heart which he addresses is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, is indeed prepared to receive any lie as a way of escape from the severe discipline by which God trains and strengthens the soul. We shall be judges according to our position and influence. How deep the condemnation of those who knew the right and yet pursued the wrong; men who held the holy Word and gave it an unholy interpretation! Leaders and prophets should examine themselves, because even they have not escaped the contagion of human nature; even they are not free from those insidious temptations which often take the soul unawares. Leaders and prophets are tempted to believe that they are free from many of the restraints which they would impose upon other people. The larger our capacity and the larger our influence, the more keen should be our self-inspection, the more wakeful should be our daily vigilance. Here is a lesson to parents, to teachers, to reformers, and to all men of influence.