Isaiah 57

We are prone to look at the future as if it all were within our power. We plan for earthly happiness, as if our own purpose were omnipotent. And even sore experience does not teach us that our arm reaches but a little distance and that we are subject to a governing power, which employs us as the potter does the clay. Of the majority of the schemes and enterprises which engage the solicitude of the busy world, it may be said, they include no thought of providence. The worldly mind and even the Christian mind under wrong influences continues its way as if self-sufficient. “To-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant.” J. W. A.

These words may be used so as to make them the utterance of a sober certainty which will not be put to shame. When we turn our hope away from earth to God and fill the future with the light of His presence and the certainty of His truth, the mists and doubts roll away, the future is as certain as the past, and hope as assured of its facts as memory. For we have an unchanging and inexhaustible God, and He is the true guarantee of the future for us. Today’s health may be to-morrow’s sickness, today’s happy companionship of love to-morrow’s aching solitude of heart; but to-day’s God will be to-morrow’s God, to-day’s Christ will be to-morrow’s Christ. . . . Then let each new day find in us a deeper love, a more perfect consecration and more joyful service, and so in all the beauties of the Christian soul and in all the blessings of the Christian life “to-morrow shall be as this day and much more abundant.” . . . That will be the sublimest application of this text when, dying, we can calmly be sure that though to-day be on this side and to-morrow on the other bank of the black river, there will be no break in the continuity, but only an infinite growth in our life, and heaven’s to-morrow shall be as earth’s to-day, and much more abundant. A. M.

57:1 THE righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart; and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come. 2 He entereth into peace; they rest in their beds, each one that walketh in his uprightness. 3 But draw near hither, ye sons of the sorceress, the seed of the adulterer and the whore. 4 Against whom do ye sport yourselves? against whom make ye a wide mouth, and draw out 5 the tongue? are ye not children of transgression, a seed of falsehood, ye that inflame yourselves among the oaks, under every green tree; that slay the children in the valleys, under 6 the clefts of the rocks? Among the smooth stones of the valley is thy portion; they, they are thy lot: even to them hast thou poured a drink offering, thou hast offered an oblation. 7 Shall I be appeased for these things? Upon a high and lofty mountain hast thou set thy 8 bed: thither also wentest thou up to offer sacrifice. And behind the doors and the posts hast thou set up thy memorial: for thou hast discovered thyself to another than me, and art gone up; thou hast enlarged thy bed, and made thee a covenant with them; thou lovedst 9 their bed where thou sawest it. And thou wentest to the king with ointment, and didst increase thy perfumes, and didst send thine ambassadors far off, and didst debase thyself even 10 unto hell. Thou wast wearied with the length of thy way; yet saidst thou not, There is no 11 hope: thou didst find a quickening of thy strength; therefore thou wast not faint. And of whom hast thou been afraid and in fear, that thou liest, and hast not remembered me, nor laid it to thy heart? have not I held my peace even of long time, and thou fearest me not? 12, 13 I will declare thy righteousness; and as for thy works, they shall not profit thee. When thou criest, let them which thou hast gathered deliver thee; but the wind shall take them, a breath shall carry them all away: but he that putteth his trust in me shall possess the land, and shall inherit my holy mountain. And he shall say, Cast ye up, cast ye up, prepare the way, take up the stumbling-block out of the way of my people.

15. For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to

16 revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. For I will not contend for ever, neither will I be always wroth: for the spirit should fail before me, and the

17 souls which I have made. For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth and smote him,

18. I hid my face and was wroth: and he went on frowardly in the way of his heart. I have seen his ways, and will heal him: I will lead him also, and restore comforts unto him and to

19 his mourners. I create the fruit of the lips: Peace, peace, to him that is far off and to him

20 that is near, saith the LORD; and I will heal him. But the wicked are like the troubled sea;

21 for it cannot rest, and its waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.

Chap. 57. This chapter is evidently closely connected in sense with chap. 56:9-12. In the closing part of the last chapter the prophet had said that the land of Israel would be invaded by foreign armies represented under the image of ravening beasts come to devour. One of the causes of this he had also stated—to wit: the general licentiousness, avarice and intemperance of the rulers of the nation. The same general subject is pursued in this chapter. The prophet states specifically the sins of the nation at large—evidently as a reason why the calamities of the foreign invasion were coming upon them. It is probable that the chapter has primary reference to the times of Manasseh. It was a time of persecution and blood. The righteous were put to death; the public service of God was profaned and desecrated; and the evils of idolatry were seen and felt, under the royal patronage, throughout the land. Yet notwithstanding this, the nation was stupid and insensible. They were not affected as they should have been by the fact that the righteous were cut off by persecution, and that idolatry was patronized throughout the land. A few, like the prophets, felt, and deeply felt. Their hearts were desponding, and their spirits drooped. To encourage them, and to rebuke the mass of the stupid and guilty nation, was the design of this chapter. Barnes.

The case of the corrupt portion of God’s ancient people is the theme through the greater part of this chapter, which therefore stands in close connection with verses 9-12 of the chapter previous. From the judgments which fall on the wicked the righteous are removed by a peaceful death and go to their rest (verses 1, 2); wicked men contemning the righteous, are themselves really worthy of contempt (verses 3, 4); their idolatry is put in literal terms

(verses 5, 6); and then in figurative (verses 7-9). They had persisted in their sin the more fearlessly because God had been extremely forbearing (verses 10-12); but judgments must come and test the value of their helpers (verse 13). The trustful in God shall find help in Him through His great condescension and mercy (verses 13-19); but only unrest and sorrow will be the lot of the wicked (verses 20, 21). H. C.

1. See the blessedness of the righteous: they are “taken away from the evil.” The Lord doeth this for them because He loves them. The words to come are not in the original. They are taken from all present evil. They are taken from an evil nature: this is the grief and burden of their righteous souls from day to day; but the death of the body shall quite destroy the body of sin and death; they shall drop this body, and wing their way to endless glory. They are taken from the evil of sin: though this did not reign over them, yet it raged in them; though they were not under its dominion, yet it warred in their members and made them cry out, Oh, wretched! Sin brought death into the world: death shall be the grave of sin: the righteous is not taken away in his sins, but from the evil of them. They are taken from that evil of evils, unbelief. From all the evil of this present world, from all pains, trials and afflictions, of whatever kind, we shall be forever delivered. This is the negative blessedness of the righteous. Who shall describe their positive happiness? It hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive what the Lord hath prepared for them who love Him: this we must die fully to know. O love the Lord, all ye His saints. William Mason.

2. This seems to be added as a kind of afterthought, to limit what immediately precedes, and preclude its application to all the dead without distinction. The peace and rest here meant are those of the body in the grave and of the soul in heaven; the former being frequently referred to as a kind of pledge and adumbration of the latter. A.—Walked in uprightness. This is literally; “the man walking straightforward,” in the moral sense. The passage shows conclusively that the prophets of Isaiah’s age knew of an after life of blessedness for the righteous, but for the righteous only. H. C.

Let all people “mark the perfect man and behold the upright,” take notice that “the end of that man is peace.” They that walk in their uprightness while they live shall enter into peace when they die. A peaceful death has concluded the troublesome life of many a good man; and all is well that thus ends everlastingly well. H.—It is true that the dying saint “goes in peace.” He has calmness in his dying, as well as peace in his grave. He leaves the world in peace. He forgives all who have injured him; prays for all who have persecuted him; and peacefully and calmly dies. He lies in a peaceful grave—often represented in the Scriptures as a place of repose, where the righteous “sleep” in the hope of being awakened in the morning of the resurrection. He enters into the rest of heaven—the world of perfect and eternal repose. No persecution comes there; no trial awaits him there; no calamity shall meet him there. Thus in all respects the righteous leave the world in peace; and thus death ceases to be a calamity, and this most dreaded of all evils is turned into the highest blessing. Barnes.

We ought not to think of those whom we have loved and lost as if they had gone, carrying with them declining powers, and still bearing the marks of this inevitable law of stagnation and then of decay, under which they groaned here. Think of them rather as having, if they sleep in Jesus, reversed all this, as having carried with them, indeed, all the gifts of matured experience and ripened wisdom which the slow years brings, but likewise as having left behind all the weariness of accomplished aims, the monotony of a formed character, the rigidity of limbs that have ceased to grow. Think of them as receiving again from the hands of Christ much of which they were robbed by the lapse of years. Think of them as then crowned with loving-kindness and satisfied with good, so that their youth is renewed like the eagle’s. Think of them as again joyjoyous, with the joy of beginning a career, which has no term but the sum of all perfection in the likeness of the infinite God. They rise like the song-bird, aspiring to the heavens, circling round, and ever higher, which “singing still doth soar, and soaring ever singeth”—up and up through the steadfast blue to the sun! They shall lose the marks of age as they grow in eternity, and they who have stood before the throne the longest shall be likest Him who sat in the sepulchre young with immortal strength, radiant with unwithering beauty. A. M.

3,4. The speaker turns suddenly to accost the wicked. The English version fails to do full justice to the force of this transition. The Hebrew reads literally, “And you—draw ye near hither;” the word “you” being made emphatic. Are not ye yourselves far more contemptible than those you contemn? To show this yet more clearly, he proceeds to describe their idolatrous habits, than which nothing could be more worthy of contempt. H. C.

5-8. The minute description of idolatry given in this passage is exceedingly perplexing to those writers who fix the date of composition at the period of the exile. Hendewerk makes one concession really valuable—viz., that the efforts of Gesenius and Hitzig to reconcile the terms of the description with the state of things during the captivity are wholly abortive. A perfect solution of the difficulty is afforded by our own hypothesis, that the prophet, from the whole field of vision spread before him, singles out the most revolting traits and images by which he could present in its true aspect the guilt and madness of apostasy from God. A.

9. A reference to efforts to secure foreign alliances. These alliances were closely related to idolatry both because they involved apostasy from the true God to other nations and to their idol gods for help, and because they naturally opened the door for introducing among themselves the gods of other nations. H. C.

10. Thou hast tried all ways to save thyself from the evils that threaten thee: with what pains didst thou court the favor of foreign princes! and to no purpose; yet thou didst not refrain: “thou hast found the life of thine hand”—that is, thou hast made a shift by these methods to support thyself for the present, therefore thou hast felt no remorse. Bp. Wilson.

Either by the aid which they had obtained from foreign alliances, or by the gratification experienced in the service of idols, they had found so much to uphold them that they had not been in utter despair, and had not been led to seek God. And the passage may teach the general truth, that notwithstanding all the trials and disappointments of life, still worldly souls find so much comfort in the ways of sin that they are not utterly prostrated and overwhelmed in despair. They still find the “life of their hand in them.” If a plan fails they repeat it, or they try another. In the pursuits of ambition, of wealth and of fashion, notwithstanding all the expense and irksomeness, and disappointment, and care, they find a kind of pleasure which sustains them, and enough success to prompt them to renewed efforts and to keep them from returning to God. They wander from object to object; they become weary in the pursuit, yet they do not abandon it; they still cling to hope though often repulsed—and though the world gives them no permanent comfort—though wealth, and ambition, and gayety, and vice all fail in imparting the happiness which they sought, yet they do not give it up in despair. They still feel that it is to be found in some other way than by the disagreeable necessity of returning to God, and they wander from object to object, and from land to land, and become exhausted in the pursuit, and are worn down by age, and still are not ready to say, “There is no hope, we give it up in despair, and we will now seek happiness in God.” The world is still pursued with just as little success, with increased exhaustion, with continually augmenting evidence that it cannot meet and satisfy the desires of the undying soul, and with just as much reluctance to seek permanent bliss in God. Barnes.

11. Have not I held my peace even of old, and thou fearest me not?**—that is, And therefore thou fearest me not? Sinners take encouragement to continue in sin from God’s patience and long-suffering. W. Lowth.

12. This language seems ironical, inasmuch as her righteousness was only outrageous iniquity. The sentiment is, Thy righteousness, such as it is, I will set plainly before thee, a righteousness that shall profit thee nothing, but shall only bring a curse upon thy guilty head.

13. When thou criest out in the panic of appalling fear, then let thy foreign gods, troops and all other helpers whatsoever rush to thy help. All will be in vain, for the wind shall bear them all away, yea a breath (vanity) shall take them. They fly like chaff before the whirlwind. But mark the contrast. He who puts his trust in Me shall have Canaan for his inheritance and My holy mountain for his home and possession. These expressions bear a wealth of precious meaning. Consider how the pilgrim travellers, forty years in the wilderness, learned the significance of possessing the land of promise, and how it became to them an image of the heavenly country. H. C.

Trust in Me shall possess. Trust in a Divine person, not only for the forgiveness of sins, but for every good that He bestows and man needs; not in His grace alone, but as well in His providence; in the end and also in the way thither; in the Divine constitution and order of things; in that fatherly care of God which comprehends all our wants and ways—this is our rest and strength, through which we may have such hold of the universe as to make “all things” ours. O. E. Daggett.

14. The idea is, that the obstacles should be removed from the path of those who put their trust in God. The language is derived from the return from the exile, as if persons should go before them, and should cry, “Cast ye up,” etc.; or as if the cry of the people all along their journey should be, “Remove the obstacles to their return.” This cry is often heard before the coming of a distinguished prince or conqueror in the East. The Rev. Joseph Wolf stated in a lecture in Philadelphia (September 18th, 1837), that on entering Jerusalem from the west, in the direction of Gaza, the road for a considerable distance from Jerusalem was so full of stones that it was impracticable to ride, and those who were entering the city were obliged to dismount. When the Pacha (Ibrahim, son of Mohammed Ali) approached Jerusalem, it was customary for a considerable number of laborers to go before him and remove the stones from the way. This was done amid a constant cry, “Cast up, cast up the way. Remove the stones, remove the stones.” And on a placard or standard it was written, “The Pacha is coming,” and everywhere the cry was heard, “The Pacha is coming, cast up the way; remove the stones.” Barnes.

This prophecy, in design as well as fact, is perfectly unlimited to any one event or period, yet perfectly defined as a description of God’s mode of dealing with His Church and with those who, although in it, are not of it. A.—The sentiment is, There shall be a call to clear the way for the true people of God to come out from among the wicked before Divine judgments shall crush and exterminate them. Prophetically its outlook may be to that sifting process which severed the true Israel from the false before the final destruction of the nation by the Romans. Or, with a less specific application it may teach in general that God’s true children are forewarned and will be providentially aided to come out from among the incorrigibly wicked before they meet their fearful doom. H. C.

15. Here the light and hope of the Gospel dawns once more amid the threatenings. Mercy and grace to the humble and contrite forms the message in the first beatitudes, and the great law of Gospel promise. Birks.

You need not hesitate to trust the promise which is involved in this command, for the High and Holy One has made the following solemn declaration. The same two epithets are joined in chap. 6 : 1, which is regarded by the modern critics as the oldest extant composition of the genuine Isaiah. A.—These are indeed sublime conceptions of the glorious God making eternity His dwelling place; exalted high above all creatures; rejoicing in the name “Holy” as best expressing His infinite purity and never sullied excellence; but representing Him, though so high and holy, as yet condescending to dwell with the contrite and the lowly of earth for the special purpose of reviving their spirit and comforting their heart. His people may trust Him none the less because He is the High and Exalted One, inhabiting eternity, rejoicing in the name “Holy,” for, though so high, and withal so pure, yet He dwells with the humble and lowly none the less for this, but rather the more surely and the more graciously. H. C.

Eternity, magnificent as it is, never was without an Inhabitant. Eternity means nothing by itself. It merely expresses the existence of the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth it. We make a fanciful distinction between eternity and time—there is no real distinction. We are in eternity at this moment. That has begun to be with us which never began with God. Our only measure of time is by the succession of ideas. It is not so with God. There is no succession of ideas with Him. Every possible idea is present with Him now. It was present with Him ten thousand years ago. God’s dwelling-place is that eternity which has neither past nor future, but one vast, immeasurable present.

There is a second measure given us of God in this verse. It is in respect of space. He dwelleth in the high and lofty place. He dwelleth, moreover, in the most insignificant place—even the heart of man. And the idea by which the prophet would here exhibit to us the greatness of God is that of His eternal omnipresence. It is difficult to say which conception carries with it the greatest exaltation—that of boundless space or that of unbounded time. If every other trace of Deity has been expunged by the fall, these two, at least, defy destruction—the thought of eternal time and the thought of immeasurable space.

The third measure which is given us of God respects His character. His name is Holy. The chief idea which this would convey to us is separation from evil. Brethren, there is a time drawing near when those of us who shall stand at His right hand, purified from all evil taint, shall be able to comprehend absolutely what is meant by the holiness of God. At present, with hearts cleaving down to earth, and tossed by a thousand gusts of unholy passion, we can only form a dim conception relatively of that which it implies. None but the pure can understand purity. The chief knowledge which we have of God’s holiness comes from our acquaintance with unholiness. We know what impurity is—God is not that. We know what injustice is—God is not that. We know what restlessness, and guilt, and passion are, and deceitfulness, and pride, and waywardness—all these we know. God is none of these. And this is our chief acquaintance with His character. We know what God is not. We scarcely can be rightly said to know—that is, to feel, what God is. And therefore this is implied in the very name of holiness. Holiness in the Jewish sense means simply separateness. From all that is wrong, and mean, and base, our God is forever separate. F. W. Robertson.

“The High and Lofty One dwells with him who is of a contrite and humble spirit;” and the end of His dwelling there is to “revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones;” by His sweet influences the lowly to exalt and the bruised to heal. True Christians are His “temples,” and He “dwells and walks in them.” They have worshipping and adoring thoughts of Him, and keep up in their hearts sacrifices of prayer and praise, which render their souls fitter temples to Him than even His awful palace in the olden Church. And, then, His “exceeding great and precious promises,” received by faith, make them “partakers of the Divine nature;” not, indeed, of the substance of God, the Divine nature itself, but of “a Divine nature,” a nature like God’s, the Divine “image and likeness” recovered. Specially doth Christ “abide in them.” A precious Saviour, He “dwells in their hearts by faith.” By faith, their hearts sweetly entertain this friend and brother of their souls. By faith, they “put on Christ,” with all the fruits of believing, till they stand “conformed to His image,” dressed both in a robe of righteousness, which He has externally wrought for them, and in a garment of holiness, which they have inwardly caught from among His shining graces. He is, moreover, “in them, the hope of glory.” Their inmost thoughts, affections and desires do so centre in Him, that they cannot doubt of ultimately sharing with Him the glory to which He is exalted. J. S. Stone.

The soul of man was meant for all that it is capable of being. And its highest end is to be yielded up to God, that His will may work in it and through it. In a word, it is to be holy as He is holy; it is to be His consecrated, His living temple—His sacred name inscribed on its portal—all the wealth of time and probation a willing sacrifice upon its altar. And how consonant and accordant is this with the majesty of God and the blessedness of man! A living temple! A human spirit within which the Eternal Spirit condescending will deign to dwell! Gillett.

Nothing in external worship is dear to Him, where the heart is foreign and alien to Him. There is no place so satisfactory for Him to rest in as the heart of His intelligent creatures; a mind penetrated with a sense of sin, touched with gratitude, glowing with love and prostrating itself in the deepest humiliation before Him, this is the place of his rest, and He bows the heaven itself and comes down to take possession of such a temple as is furnished by the heart of that man. R. Hall.

“I dwell with him that is of a contrite and humble spirit.” There is this distinction between what is great in God and what is great in man. To be independent of everything in the universe is God’s glory, and to be independent is man’s shame. All that God has, He has from Himself—all that man has, he has from God. And the moment man cuts himself off from God, that moment he cuts himself off from grandeur. In two things the greatness of man consists. One is to have God so dwelling in us as to impart His character to us; and the other is to have God so dwelling in us that we recognize His presence, and know that we are His and He is ours. They are two things perfectly distinct. To have God in us, this is salvation; to know that God is in us, this is assurance. F. W. R.

Christ discloses a second universe in the soul, with its depths of infinite yearning and heights of capability, and shows the greatness that is in man, by touching human nature with the Divine which is in Himself. The man who, with unscaled eyes and humble heart, enters this new world, perceives a growing grandeur worthy of all that God has done or can do for it—a world that goes forward not to death, but life, and that even now floods all the stars with a purer, tenderer light than the astronomer’s tube can reveal. The character of God rises more conspicuously Divine—love softening greatness, and greatness commending love. “The High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, and that dwells in the high and holy place, dwelleth with Him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.” Ker.

Nothing of more serious import can possibly be expressed than what is here declared to us, that no communion between the Holy One and the proud man can ever find a place, but only with the sinner truly penitent. The higher our heart raises itself, the farther He draws back; the deeper our soul abases itself, the lower the hand of mercy is silently stretched forth toward us. Never have we less to fear than when we sink ourselves; never more to hope than when we begin to despair of all save One. “First, when you have really become nothing, can God make anything of you:” the paradox of Luther remains always true and beautiful, but not so beautiful as this passage from Isaiah. He who in such a passage does not hear the voice of God Himself is deaf in spiritual matters. And he who through God’s grace not merely receives it, but with trembling hand grasps it as the firm staff of his own support, ever gives thanks anew for it, clings fast to it, pressing forward to the heights which undoubtedly he shall at last attain, though it may well be—only through the depths. Van O.

16. The great mercy and compassion of God toward His people are manifested especially in His corrective discipline. He is constrained to “contend” with them in stern displeasure, rebuking them for their iniquity; yet even then His great compassion sets the shortest limit possible. “He will not contend forever,” “for He knoweth our frame and remembereth that we are dust.” He takes it into account that no human soul can long endure under His rebuke. H. C.

We are not to despair because we have faltered and failed; nor need we write bitter things against ourselves; we are just what others are—erring children of a fallen race. Hence, instead of despairing, repining or hating ourselves, we should patiently endeavor to correct our faults, amend our ways and doings, and above all we should commit the keeping of our souls unto God in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator. However much we may despise ourselves, we are dear to the heart of God; and He who has bought us with His blood has not paid the wondrous price of our redemption to lose us without a struggle or abandon us because of frailties and infirmities. Let us turn our hearts to Him, and content ourselves to lie low at His feet and passive in His hands, that we may be made vessels unto honor, fitted for the Master’s use. Anon.

17. The sentiments of the verse are that covetousness is a sin often fearfully prevalent; always most provoking to God; a sin for which He often chastises men, and yet one which His best efforts fail to cure. H. C.

18. God takes away a little comfort, that He may make room in the soul for a greater degree of comfort. This, the prophet Isaiah sweetly shows: “I have seen his ways, and will heal him; I will lead him also, and restore comforts unto him, and to his mourners.” Bear up sweetly, O precious soul! thy storm shall end in a calm, and thy dark night in a sunshiny day. Thy mourning shall be turned into rejoicing, and the waters of consolation shall be sweeter and higher in thy soul than ever. The mercy is surely thine, but the time of giving it is the Lord’s. T. Brooks.

No human heart, however wounded, continues always to bleed. Some gracious vegetation creeps over the wildest ruin. The roughest edges are smoothed by time. Vitality asserts itself; other interests have a right to be entertained, and are entertained. The recuperative powers come into play, and the pang departs and poignancy is softened. The nightly guest, Sorrow, slips away, and ere we know, another sits in her place. Some of us try to fight against that merciful process, and seem to think that it is a merit to continue, by half artificial means, the first moment of pain, and that it is treason to some dear remembrances to let life have its way, and to-day have its rights. That is to set ourselves against the dealings of God, and to refuse to forgive Him for what His love has done for us.

But another thought seems to me to be even more beautiful—viz., the transformation of the evil, sorrow itself, into the radiant form of joy. A prince comes to a poor man’s hovel, is hospitably received in the darkness, and, being received and welcomed, in the morning slips off the rags and appears as he is. Sorrow is Joy disguised. If it be accepted, if the will submit, if the heart let itself be untwined, that its tendrils may be coiled closer round the heart of

God, then the transformation is sure to come, and joy will dawn on those who have done rightly—that is, submissively and thankfully—by their sorrows. It will not be a joy like what the world calls joy—loud-voiced, boisterous, ringing with idiot laughter; but it will be pure, and deep, and sacred, and permanent. A white lily is better than a flaunting peony, and the joy into which sorrow accepted turns is pure and refining and good. All our troubles, big and little, may be converted into gladnesses if we accept them as God meant them. A. M.

Nothing doth so establish the mind amid the rollings and turbulency of present things as both a look above them and a look beyond them; above them, to the steady and good hand by which they are ruled; and beyond them, to the sweet and beautiful end to which by that hand they shall be brought. Leighton.

19. I create the fruit of the lips. “The sacrifice of praise,” saith Paul (Heb. 13:15), “is the fruit of the lips.” God creates this fruit of the lips by giving new subject and cause of thanksgiving by His mercies conferred on those among His people who acknowledge and bewail their transgressions, and return to Him. The great subject of thanksgiving is peace; reconciliation and pardon offered to them that are nigh, and to them that are afar off; not only to the Jew, but also to the Gentile, as Paul more than once applies those terms (Eph. 2:13, 17; see also Acts 2:39). Bp. Lowth.—The connection of thought in our passage is that His wayward people when brought to repentance by His corrective discipline, so as to be truly broken and humbled in spirit, will have their mouths filled with praise and will be blessed with double peace, both the Gentile afar off and the Jew who is near. “Peace” comprehends all spiritual blessings. H. C.

Serenity and pure-heartedness are the kind of peace that has most of heaven. It is better than religious rapture. The rapture that comes from pardoned guilt is like the fire-rocket that streams and blazes through the black sky, making everything brilliant for a moment, and forcing men to look at it; the peace of him that has lived near to God is like the quiet, steady lustre of the lighthouse lamp, startling no one, very easily mistaken for a common light, but never quenched; ever to be found when wanted, casting the same mild ray through the long night across the maddest billows that curl their crests around the rock on which it stands. This is the kind of peace enjoyed by him that is near. F. W. R.

The “peace of God” to which the apostle refers with a kind of rapturous confidence is not simply an expression of the soul’s relations to the Divine judgment, as justified by the blood of the cross, nor yet is it that harmony of spirit that binds the company of believers together in holy love; but beyond these, yet not excluding them, it is the inward state of the soul renewed by grace, in which the Divine Comforter has taken up His abode, Himself the Author and perpetual source of the soul’s deep and quiet confidence in God—a state of mind which, though well known to the conscious subject of it, surpasses human thought in respect to its cause and its sure support. And yet so surely is this peace maintained and defended against all assaults, that the whole spiritual nature—the heart and mind—are kept inviolate, so long as the soul abides in Christ Jesus. And as this result is accomplished in Him, both the peace itself and the accompanying security are His perpetual gifts. We abide in Him, being kept by His gracious power; and in Him is all fulness of grace. So long as the soul’s interests are given up to Christ, they are safe beyond all liability to fall, or to be spoiled by the adversary. The Shepherd keeps His own, He leads them in green pastures, and beside the still waters; and none can perish that do not wander from the flock. D. Curry.

20,21. While the souls of the righteous rest in deep repose, trusting in their God forever, the wicked have no true peace at all. Forever restive, never satisfied with either themselves or God; grasping after good they cannot attain, they are forcibly and fitly compared to the restless sea. H. C.—When we can once stay our minds on God, we are quiet; but when we must bring God to our mind, and must have God go our pace, or come at our time and work in our way (none of which He will do, what ado soever we make to have it so), oh, how restless and troubled are we, even like the troubled sea when it cannot rest! Caryl.

Leave the passions unsubdued, and they turn the soul into a tiger’s cage, and man grows up a self-willed, capricious, tyrannic being, uncomfortable himself and uncomfortable to everybody else, always in trouble, and practically an Ishmael, domineering or impetuous, a tyrant or a criminal. Let the individual be left to his appetites, let him be indulged in having whatever he craves, and he will always be governed by his impulses and his thirst for pleasure, till nothing will satisfy him; content will be impossible. He will be uneasy, restless, wretched. Gillett.

It is only when these passions are subdued that there can be calmness of spirit; and these are effectually subdued only under the influence of religion. Men may learn in some degree to control them by the influence of philosophy; or a pride of character and respect to their station and reputation may enable them in some degree to restrain them, but they are like the smothered fires of the volcano or like the momentary calm of the ocean that a gust of wind may soon lash into foam. To restrain them is not to subdue them; for no man can tell how soon he may be excited by anger or how soon the smothered fires of lust may burn. Barnes.

The passion, the desires, the impulses that lead us to do wrong things, are like a crew that mutiny, and take for a moment the wheel from the steersman and the command from the captain, but then, having driven the ship on the rocks, the mutineers get intoxicated and lie down and sleep. Passion fulfils itself, and expires. The desire is satisfied, and it turns into a loathing. The tempter draws us to him, and then unveils the horrid face that lies beneath the mask. When the deed is done and cannot be undone, then comes satiety; then comes the reaction of the fierce excitement, the hot blood begins to flow more slowly; then rises up in the heart conscience; then rises up in majesty in the soul reason; then flashes and flares before the eye the vivid picture of the consequences. His enemy has found the sinner. A. M.

Cannot rest. This impossibility of rest arises partly from the soul’s own majesty. God made the spirit of man like the ocean in its vastness. It is its own magnificence that makes it intensely miserable. Man’s soul rocks and billows itself with an eternity beneath it. It is that which makes human suffering a thing of grandeur, because every pang that contracts a human brow and every quiver that distorts a pale lip are only indications of what may merge into the unresting doom of infinite wail. When God put man in possession of a self, and made that self immortal, He only made him master of a tremendous heritage of woe.

Partly, again, this impossibility of rest comes from the soul’s power of being acted upon by heavenly influences and by earthly ones together. The sea rests not because of the attraction of the heavenly bodies, which keep it in an endless ebb and flow—drawn toward the earth and drawn toward the sky alternately, and obeying neither impulse solely, it cannot rest. Know we nothing of this in our own bosoms? There is a tide of feeling which ebbs alternately to heaven and earth. “The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.” We are conscious, surely, of high instincts that tell of God; conscious, besides, of grovelling propensities that drag us down to earth—low wants and lofty longings. So long as these hold man’s soul alternately, is rest possible? Nay, one force must overcome the other before that can be. The love of God must master the world’s attraction, or if not, then the soul is “like the troubled sea when it cannot rest.”

Partly, once more, the impossibility of rest arises from outward circumstances. There are winds that sweep along the ocean’s surface and fret it into agitation. A small gust raises a single wave on the surface of the water, and before that wave has passed over a thousand miles it has become a swell which may swamp a navy. Something like this man has to make him restless. Besides his own inborn passions, there are circumstances from without in this world to fret and agitate and discompose his spirit—small trials of temper that make up much of the weariness of life; reverses of fortune; all that men call annoyances and sorrows. And then we lay the blame on these and ask, “How could the man have been otherwise than as he is? He is disappointed, miserable; well, but the circumstances of his earlier years, faulty education, others’ neglect, made him so.” The man who has not peace in himself cannot get peace from circumstances. Place him where you will, he carries an unquiet heart along with him. Can you keep the ocean from the wind? Can you bid the gust and the hurricane be still, and not play their wild game over the face of the waters? Can you save man from circumstances? Nay. We are here to control the circumstances in which we are placed, and transmute them, and get good and spirituality out of them. It certainly may be true that a man is made restless and miserable by circumstances. It certainly may be that the ocean is ploughed into billows by the tempest blasts, but all that they did was to lash the ocean and show that it was yielding water and not firm rock. All that circumstances have done when they make a man restless is just this, to show that he is not incorporated with the Rock of Ages. F. W. Robertson.

It is a certain truth, what this prophet had said before (chap. 48:22), and here repeats (verse 21), “There is no peace to the wicked,” no reconciliation to God, nor can they be upon good terms with Him while they go on still in their trespasses; no quietness or satisfaction in their own mind, no real good, no peace in death, because no hope. “My God hath said it,” and all the world cannot unsay it, That there is no peace to those that allow themselves in any sin. What have they to do with peace? H.

The world’s peace is the indulgence of the heart as if it were in a state of health—“Let nature have her way;” Christ’s peace is the healing of a disordered heart. It does not consist in giving the rein to desires, but in mastering them. It consists in placing the whole soul under the discipline of the cross, and “bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” We are “sick to death,” sick of our own selfishness and our own unregenerated hearts; and we are here in this world to be cured. These are our only two hopes of rest. The world’s peace comes by adding fuel to the fever; Christ’s peace comes by curing it. And there is not a man in this congregation who is not resting his faith and his expectation of rest on one of these promises or the other. There is not one who has immersed himself in business, and there is not one who has hidden himself, like Adam, in the trees of this world’s garden of enjoyment who does not hope to find in his own way the rest which his spirit needs. Through the path of guilt or through the path of restlessness we are all seeking rest. In life’s retirement or in life’s bustle it is the same pursuit in different forms. Seek on we must, till we win or miss forever. F. W. R.

I am a very strong believer in the punishment of certain kinds of actions, not only in the present, but in all the future a man can have, be it long or short. Therefore in hell; for I suppose that all men with a clear sense of right and wrong (and I am not sure that any others deserve such punishment) have now and then “descended into hell” and stopped there quite long enough to know what infinite punishment means. And if a genuine, not merely subjective immortality awaits us, I conceive that, without some such change as that depicted in the fifteenth chapter of the second Epistle to the Corinthians, immortality must be eternal misery. The faith of Swift’s Struldbrugs seems to me not more horrible than that of a mind imprisoned forever within the flammantia mania of inextinguishable memories. Huxley.—Professor Huxley does well to emphasize the awfulness of inextinguishable memories. And yet who shall say the remorse which is the fruit of the memories of evil deeds may not be the punishment held in reserve for the impenitent and perverse; and if so who shall declare it to be unjust? For remorse, born as it is of the memories, carries with it a sense of wilful, deliberate, perverse wickedness which is irremediable. We recall the lines printed in the London Spectator some years ago, and which arrested attention at the time. We give two stanzas:

I sat alone with my conscience in a place where time had ceased,

And we talked of my former living in the land where the years increased.

The ghosts of forgotten actions came floating before my sight,

And things that I thought were dead things were alive with a terrible might;

The vision of all my past life was an awful thing to face

Alone with my conscience, sitting in that silently solemn place.

And now alone with my conscience, in the place where the years increase,

I try to recall that future in the land where time will cease;

And I know of the future judgment, how dreadful so-e’er it be,

That to sit alone with my conscience will be judgment enough for me.

Christian at Work.

It is somewhat surprising that the “higher criticism” has not detected in this repetition a marginal gloss or the assimilating hand of some redactor. But even Hitzig zealously contends, without an adversary, that the verse is genuine both here and in chap. 48:22, and that its studied repetition proves the unity and chronological arrangement of the whole book. The only wonder is that in a hundred cases more or less analogous the same kind of reasoning is rejected as beneath refutation. This verse, according to the theory of Rückert, Hitzig and Hävernick, closes the second great division of the later prophecies. A.