Bible Commentaries

Isaiah 10:3

What the world's glory consists of is readily apprehended. That a man be conspicuous among and above his fellow-mortals;—be a more important object, as if a larger measure of being, than a number of them estimated collectively;—be much observed, admired, even envied, as being that which they cannot be;—be often in people's thoughts and in their discourse. The man of glory is to be such a one, that it shall seem as if it were chiefly on his account that many other men and things exist.

I. "Where will ye leave your glory?" What! then, it is to be left, the object of all this ardour and idolatry—all this anxiety and exertion—all this elation and pride,—is to be left. Men must leave their glory. (1) Where will they leave it, that it can in any sense continue to be theirs? (2) Where will they leave it, that it shall be anything to them? What becomes of it next? (3) Where will they leave their glory, to be kept that they may obtain it again?

II. Apply these remarks to several of the kinds, the forms, of this world's glory. (1) The material splendour of life-; (2) riches; (3) elevated rank in society; (4) the possession of power; (5) martial glory; (6) intellectual glory. "Where will ye leave your glory?" Contrast with all these forms of folly the predominant aim of a Christian, which is "glory" still; but a glory which he will not have to leave, a glory accumulated for him in the world to which he is going.

J. Foster, Lectures, 2nd series, p. 40.

References: Isaiah 10:5.—Clergyman's Magazine, vol. ii., p. 209. Isaiah 10:20-23.—H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 43. Isaiah 11:1-9.—Ibid., vol. xxiii., p. 281.