Isaiah 56

56: 1 THUS saith the LORD, Keep ye judgement, and do righteousness: for my salvation is near to come, and my righteousness to be revealed. Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that holdeth fast by it; that keepeth the sabbath from profaning it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil. Neither let the stranger, that hath joined himself to the LORD, speak, saying, The LORD will surely separate me from his people: neither let the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree. For thus saith the LORD of the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and hold fast by my covenant: Unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a memorial and a name better than of sons and of daughters; I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off. Also the strangers, that join themselves to the LORD, to minister unto him, and to love the name of the LORD, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from profaning it, and holdeth fast by my covenant; even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar: for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all peoples. The Lord God which gathereth the outcasts of Israel saith, Yet will I gather others to him, beside his own that are gathered. 9, 10 All ye beasts of the field, come to devour, yea, all ye beasts in the forest. His watchmen are blind, they are all without knowledge; they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; dreaming, lying down, loving to slumber. Yea, the dogs are greedy, they can never have enough; and these are shepherds that cannot understand: they have all turned to their own way, each one to his gain, from every quarter. Come ye, say they, I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and to-morrow shall be as this day, a day great beyond measure.

Chap. 56. While the Church, with its essential institutions, is to continue unimpaired, the old distinctions, national and personal, are to be done away and the Jewish people robbed of that pre-eminence of which its rulers proved themselves unworthy. The day is coming when the righteousness of God is to be fully revealed, without the veils and shackles which had hitherto confined it (verse 1). For this great change the best preparation is fidelity to the spirit of the old economy (verse 2). No personal or national distinctions will be any longer recognized (verse 3). Connection with the Church will no longer be a matter of hereditary right (verses 4, 5). The Church shall be henceforth coextensive with the world (verses 6-8). But first, the carnal Israel must be abandoned to its enemies (verse 9). Its rulers are neither able nor worthy to deliver the people or themselves (verses 10-12). A.

This chapter to verse 9 is evidently a continuation of the same general subject which is discussed in the previous chapters, and is closely connected with the great truths communicated in chap. 52: 13-15 and chap. 53, respecting the coming and work of the Messiah. The general design of the prophet seems to be to state the happy results which would follow His coming and His work. In chap. 54 he states that that work would render the establishment and perpetuity of the Church certain. In chap. 55 he states that the work of the Messiah would lay the foundation for the offer of the Gospel to all men, and that it should certainly be successful on the earth and finally triumph, and produce great and important changes. In this chapter (verses 1-9) the same idea is presented in another form, that no one would be excluded from the offer of salvation, and that strangers and foreigners should become connected, with equal privileges, with the people of God. At verse 9 a new subject is introduced—the invasion of the land of Judea by foreign armies and the consequent punishment of the wicked and idolatrous part of the nation. This subject is continued in the following chapter. The following analysis will present a view of the design and scope of this.

1. The kingdom of God was near. The great work of man’s redemption to which the prophet referred would not be long delayed, and those who were expecting the coming of the Messiah should be holy (verse 1).

2. The blessedness of those who should be admitted to the privileges connected with the kingdom of God and the coming of the Messiah (verses 2-8).

Who they would be: The man who kept the Sabbath (verses 2-4). The stranger and foreigner (verses 3-6). The eunuch (verses 3, 4). None should be excluded, whatever might be their rank in life or the estimation in which they were held among men.

The blessedness of that state; the privileges of thus being admitted to the favor and friendship of God (verses 7, 8). They should be brought to His holy mountain; they should be made joyful in the house of prayer; their offerings should be accepted; these favors should be extended to all people (verses 7, 8).

3. A prophecy respecting the invasion of the land on account of the crimes of the nation. The invasion is represented under the image of wild beasts coming to devour (verse 9). The cause of this: The indolence and unfaithfulness of the watchmen (verse 10). Their selfishness, avarice and covetousness (verse 11). Their revelry and intemperance (verse 12). Barnes.

1. The doctrine of the passage is simply this, that they who enjoy extraordinary privileges or expect extraordinary favors are under corresponding obligations to do the will of God; and moreover that the nearer the manifestation of God’s mercy, whether in time or in eternity, the louder the call to righteousness of life. These truths are of no restricted application, but may be applied wherever the relation of a church or chosen people can be recognized. A.

1,2. What is here required is: 1. That we be honest and just in all our dealings, “Keep ye judgment and do justice.” Walk by rule and make conscience of what you say and do, that you do no wrong to any; render to all their dues exactly, and in exacting what is due to you keep up a court of equity in your own bosom, to moderate the rigors of the law. Be ruled by that golden rule, “Do as you would be done by.” Magistrates must administer justice wisely and faithfully. This is required to evidence the sincerity of our faith and repentance and to open the way of mercy, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” God is true to us, let us be so to one another.

2. That we religiously observe the Sabbath day. We are not just if we rob God of His time. Sabbath sanctification is here put for all the duties of the first table, the fruits of our love to God; as justice and judgment for all those of the second table, the fruits of our love to our neighbor. The duty required is to keep the Sabbath; to keep it as a talent we are to trade with, as a treasure we are intrusted with,

“Keep it holy, keep it safe, keep it with care and caution, keep it from polluting it; allow neither yourselves not others either to violate the holy rest or omit the holy work of that day.” The encouragement we have to do this duty, “Blessed is he that doeth it.” The way to have the blessing of God upon our employments all the week is to make conscience and make a business of Sabbath sanctifications; in doing so we shall be the better qualified to do judgment and justice. The more godliness, the more honesty (1 Tim. 2:2).

3. That we have nothing to do with sin, “Blessed is the man that keeps his hand from doing evil,” any wrong to his neighbor, in body, goods or good name; or, more generally, anything that is displeasing to God and hurtful to his own soul. The best evidence of our having kept the Sabbath well will be a care to keep a good conscience all the week. H.

An upright, holy, honest man not only worships God and keeps the Sabbath, but he is upright in the discharge of all the duties which he owes to his fellow-men. These two specifications are evidently designed to include all the influences of religion—the proper service and worship of God and an upright and holy life. Never, in fact, are they separated. Barnes.

The Son of God and Son of Man is still widening out and building up for us His new kingdom on the earth—which wherever it really comes regenerates society and makes human life a new thing. Into that kingdom He sets the gate open. But though we may be in it there is this stern and solemn fact revealed there, that we are not of it and it is not in us unless we are growing every day into its in-most principle and law; unless we are getting liberated and purified by its charity from the selfishness and pride of that other kingdom which is closer to our senses, has a louder voice, and wears a handsomer outside; unless we are continually looking about us to see how we can be more just to those at our side, more helpful to those that seem to stand below us, reverencing more and more both God and man because we see both to be one in the glorified humanity of our Lord. F. D. H.

2. A reference to the primary and secondary ends of the Sabbatical institution and the belief involved in its observance. In the first place, it implied a recognition of Jehovah as the omnipotent creator of the universe (Ex. 20:11; 31:17); in the next place, as the sanctifier of His people, not in the technical or theological sense, but as denoting Him by whom they had been set apart as a peculiar people

(Ex. 31:13; Ezek. 20:12); in the next place, as the Saviour of this chosen people from the bondage of Egypt (De. 5:15). Of these great truths the Sabbath was a weekly remembrancer, and its observance by the people a perpetual recognition and profession, besides the practical advantages accruing to the maintenance of a religious spirit by the weekly recurrence of a day of rest. A.

Keeping the Sabbath sacred is put here in one clause, and in its parallel clause withholding the hand from every moral evil, as if the observance of the Sabbath were designed to comprehend or represent all religious observances, the entire external worship of God. This prominence given to the Sabbath must certainly imply that God holds its observance in specially high esteem, and that He intends it shall be a perpetual, and not a merely Jewish and transient institution. This high appreciation of the Sabbath and solemn purpose to make it perpetual rested on substantial grounds, the Sabbath being the grand public recognition of His creatorship; a sign and seal also of special covenant relation with Jehovah as the God of His people—“that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you” (Ex. 31:13). Moreover it had a vital utility as a reservation of time from other intruding and preventing avocations, for the unbroken study of God in His word and ordinances, and for His worship, both public and private. The Sabbath considered as “made for man” was the fruit of consummate wisdom and of true love to man’s best interests. H. C.

3. The essential meaning of this verse is, that all external disabilities shall be abolished, whether personal or national. A.—The son of the stranger is any foreigner not of Jewish birth. If he is willing to join himself as a proselyte to God’s people, let him not say or think that he and his class are walled out from communion and fellowship in the Church. The door of admission is to be set fully open and every middle wall of partition is to come down. H. C.

Two descriptions of persons are mentioned in this verse, strangers and eunuchs, who, looking to the economy of the Old Testament, might expect they should have an inferior share in the kingdom of Christ. Vitringa.—God declares here, that the Gentile should be accepted, under the Gospel dispensation (the partition wall being broken down), equally with the Jew; and that the times were now coming when the inward endowments of the soul be sufficient to give persons a title to the communion of saints, and their names be written in the book of life, a more lasting remembrance than posterity could entitle them to. W. Lowth.

4,5. What it is that God delights in may be learned from chaps. 66 : 4 ; Jer. 9 : 24 ; Hos. 6 : 6. By holding fast my covenant is meant adhering to His compact with me, which includes obedience to the precepts and faith in the promises. The promise is not merely one of free access to the material sanctuary, but of a home in the household or family of God, an image of perpetual occurrence in the Psalms of David. A beautiful coincidence and partial fulfilment of the promise is pointed out by J. D. Michaelis, in the case of the Ethiopian eunuch whose conversion is recorded in the eighth of Acts, and whose memory is far more honored in the Church than it could have been by a long line of illustrious descendants. A.

7. Our Saviour quotes a part of the last clause, not in reference to its main sense, but to what is incidentally mentioned—viz., its being called a house of prayer. This part of the sentence was applicable to the material temple while it lasted ; but the whole prediction could be verified only after its destruction, when the house of God even upon earth ceased to be a limited locality, and became coextensive with the Church in its enlargement and diffusion. The form of expression is derived, however, from the ceremonies of the old economy, and worship is described by names familiar to the writer and his original readers. (Cf. Hos. 14 : 3 ; Heb. 13 : 13 ; John 4 : 21-23.) A.—“ My holy mountain,” “ My house of prayer,” “ burnt offerings and sacrifices upon mine altar ;” all come from the Jewish age. Yet their real significance belongs to the Gospel age and pledges to Gentiles as to Jews equal privileges of acceptable worship and of filial relationship to God. The prophecy anticipates that great truth which broke in slowly upon the dark minds of the Christian brotherhood soon after the day of the great Pentecost, “ Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons ; but in every nation, he that feareth Him and worketh righteousness is accepted of Him” (Acts 10 : 34, 35). H. C.

It is not an enlargement, but a transformation of the Jewish dispensation which is here anticipated ; not a conversion to Israel, but to Israel’s God ; not a merging of all nations into Israel, but a breaking down of separating walls ; not a universal synagogue, but a universal Church, in which all that had been national, preparatory, symbolic, typical, would merge into the spiritual reality of fulfilment.

But what is this prophecy from the Book of Isaiah other than a prediction of the words of Christ concerning those other sheep of His, not of the Jewish fold, whom He must bring, and who should hear His voice, that so there might be one flock and one Shepherd—words which He consecrated by His latest prayer. A. E.

Make them joyful in My house of prayer. They who truly love and fear God above all things find more joy and comfort in His house than anywhere else ; the whole work of the place is delightful to them, the Spirit of God co-operating with them in it, and God never failing to perform His promise here made to those who come to His house duly prepared, and keep their minds intent upon Him and the duties there performed. Bp. Beveridge.

God has ever ordained to man a set place for his regular, stated periods of worship. Neither groves nor hill-tops were God’s first temples. Even in the patriarchal ages, among the nomadic generations, the few true worshippers of Jehovah performed their worship before the narrow altar of stones, the erection of their own hands, builded unto the Lord in some selected spot, which altar was set up once only in each place where they sojourned. One of the first commands of God to Israel, after their separation as His people, was, “ Let them make Me a sanctuary,” a place where I may dwell ! First the tabernacle, and afterward the Temple in Jerusalem. This was called God’s holy dwelling—His house. For centuries and generations this was His holy dwelling-place. Under the better spiritual dispensation the single place hallowed by God’s special presence became many. His dwelling-place God ever since has made, wherever, in lowly or costly structure, devout hearts congregate to worship Him in spirit and in truth. Every such house solemnly set apart to His worship, every such house where God Himself is present—and only so long as He is present—is God’s house. And God’s house is pre-eminently the house of prayer—that is, of communion with God, in thankful adoration and praise, in supplication, in the believing reception of truth and promise, and in the participation of sacramental provision and privilege. B.

8. He who gathers the outcasts of Israel to Himself will also gather the outcast Gentiles as well. Would He not herein signify His special pleasure in gathering outcast ones—those who are ostracized by the pride or selfishness of man, but are for that reason only the more welcome to the compassionate sympathy of the Infinite Father ? H. C.

All may come; all may have the assurance that their offering will be acceptable. The whole world lies on a level before God in regard to its origin, for God “has made of one blood all the nations of men to dwell on the face of all the earth” (Acts 18: 26). The whole race is on a level in regard to moral character, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And the whole race is on a level in regard to redemption, for the same Saviour died for all; there is the same Spirit to sanctify all; the same heaven is offered to all; and the same eternal and most blessed God is ready to admit all to His favor, and to confer on all everlasting life. What thanks do we owe to the God of grace for the blessings of the eternal Gospel; and how deeply anxious should we be that the offers of salvation should in fact be made known to all men! The wide world may be saved, and there is not one of the human race so degraded in human estimation by rank, or color, or ignorance who may not be admitted to the same heaven with Abraham and the prophets, and whose prayers and praises would not be as acceptable to God as those of the most magnificent monarch who ever wore a crown. Come the day then when all nations shall hear the glad tidings of salvation; and when the offers of eternal redemption shall be made to all the dwellers on the earth. Barnes.

9. We have here simply one of those alternations and transitions which are not only frequent in this book, but one of its characteristics, and indeed essential to the writer’s purpose of exhibiting God’s dealing with His Church both in wrath and mercy. From the foregoing promises of growth, He now reverts to intervening judgments and their causes. A.—This abrupt change of subject, from Gospel promise made to outcasts, foreigners and men deemed unclean, to the announcement of devouring ruin upon a class whose watchmen are blind and whose shepherds are ignorant, sensual and selfish, can be accounted for only upon the supposition that the prophet has a mission to two classes who are morally the antipodes of each other; the one class honestly fearing and seeking God; the other, apostate, judicially blinded, and near the point of being rejected of God as incorrigible. These two classes constituted the nominally Jewish community at the Saviour’s advent. H. C.

10. “Watchman” is another term for “shepherd,” referring here to the religious teachers of the Lord’s people—scribes, Pharisees, doctors of the law, and at an earlier age the false prophets and corrupt priests. They are blind, mentally and spiritually—a fact to which Isaiah repeatedly refers. H. C.—They feed not the flock, but fleece it. They are every one looking to his own way, minding his own private interests, and have no regard at all to the public welfare; it was Paul’s complaint of the watchmen in his time (Phil. 2: 21), “All seek their own, not the things that are Jesus Christ’s.” Every one is for propagating his own opinion, advancing his own party, raising his own family and having everything to his own mind, while the common concerns of the public are wretchedly neglected and postponed. They look every one to his gain from his quarter, from his end or part of the work, they are for gain from every quarter. H.

11,12. The description drops the figure of the dog after the first clause, and speaks of the same religious leaders as themselves shepherds who are void of just understanding; supremely selfish; fearfully, disgustingly sensual; given to strong drink, and spending the live-long night and even the next day in the long-protracted debaucheries of beastly intoxication. H. C.

12. They were secure and confident of the continuance of their prosperity and ease; they said, “To-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant; we shall have as much to spend upon our lusts to-morrow as we have today.” They had no thought at all of their own frailty and mortality, though they were shortening their days and hastening their deaths by their excesses. They had no dread of the judgments of God, though they were daily provoking Him and making themselves liable to His wrath and curse. They never considered the uncertainty of all the delights and enjoyments of sense, how they perish in the using and pass away with the lusts of them. They resolved to continue in this wicked course whatever their consciences said to the contrary, to be as merry to-morrow as they are today. “But boast not thyself of to-morrow, when perhaps this night thy soul shall be required of thee.” H.

Whoever may order our lives for us, it is very certain that the ordering of them is not left in our hands. If it were, our emotions would be more simple, our conditions more stable and more constant; we should abide in prosperity, our joy would be unmixed with grief. As it is, we live in a constant flux of change. We know not what a day may bring forth. Almost all we know of to-morrow is that it will not be as to-day; it may be more abundant,

but its abundance is just as likely to be burdensome and painful to us as it is to be helpful and invigorating. To-day we may be clothed in garments of heaviness, to-morrow we may exchange them for the robes of mirth. To-day we try with trembling lips to frame some words of comfort for those who mourn an irreparable loss; to-morrow our lips run over with laughter and utter good wishes for those who sit at the very climax of joy and hope. Cox.