I
S A I A H
CHAP. XXVII.
In
this chapter the prophet goes on to show, I. What great things God would do
for his church and people, which should now shortly be accomplished in the
deliverance of Jerusalem from Sennacherib and the destruction of the Assyrian
army; but it is expressed generally, for the encouragement of the church in
after ages, with reference to the power and prevalency of her enemies. 1. That
proud oppressors should be reckoned with, ver. 1. 2. That care should be taken
of the church, as of God's vineyard, ver. 2, 3. 3. That God would let fall his
controversy with the people, upon their return to him, ver. 4, 5. 4. That he
would greatly multiply and increase them, ver. 6. 5. That, as to their
afflictions, the property of them should be altered (ver. 7), they should be
mitigated and moderated (ver. 8), and sanctified, ver. 9. 6. That though the
church might be laid waste, and made desolate, for a time (ver. 10, 11), yet
it should be restored, and the scattered members should be gathered together
again, ver. 12, 13. All this is applicable to the grace of the gospel, and
God's promises to, and providences concerning, the Christian church, and such
as belong to it.
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The
Doom of Persecutors; The Privilege of Saints.
B. C. 718.
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1 In that day the LORD
with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing
serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon
that is in the sea. 2 In that day sing ye unto her, A
vineyard of red wine. 3 I the LORD
do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep
it night and day. 4 Fury is not in me: who would set the
briers and thorns against me in battle? I would go through them, I
would burn them together. 5 Or let him take hold of my strength, that
he may make peace with me; and he shall make peace with me.
6 He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root: Israel shall blossom
and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit.
The prophet is here singing of judgment and mercy,
I. Of judgment upon the enemies of God's church (v. 1), tribulation
to those that trouble it, 2 Thess. i. 6. When the Lord comes out of his
place, to punish the inhabitants of the earth (ch. xxvi. 21), he
will be sure to punish leviathan, the dragon that is in the sea,
every proud oppressing tyrant, that is the terror of the mighty, and, like the
leviathan, is so fierce that none dares stir him up, and his heart
as hard as a stone, and when he raises up himself the mighty are
afraid, Job xli. 10, 24, 25. The church has many enemies, but commonly
some one that is more formidable than the rest. So Sennacherib was in his day,
and Nebuchadnezzar in his, and Antiochus in his; so Pharaoh had been formerly,
and is called leviathan and the dragon, ch. li. 9; Ps.
lxxiv. 13, 14; Ezek. xxix. 3. The New-Testament church has had its leviathans;
we read of a great red dragon ready to devour it, Rev. xii. 3. Those malignant
persecuting powers are here compared to the leviathan for bulk, and strength,
and the mighty bustle they make in the world,--to dragons for their rage and
fury,--to serpents, piercing serpents, penetrating in their counsels,
quick in their motions, and which, if they once get in their head, will soon
wind in their whole body,--crossing like a bar (so the margin),
standing in the way of all their neighbours and obstructing them,--to crooked
serpents, subtle and insinuating, but perverse and mischievous. Great and
mighty princes, if they oppose the people of God, are in God's account as
dragons and serpents, the plagues of mankind; and the Lord will punish them in
due time. They are too big for men to deal with and call to an account, and
therefore the great God will take the matter into his own hands. He has a sore,
and great, and strong sword, wherewith to do execution upon them when the measure
of their iniquity is full and their day has come to fall. It is
emphatically expressed in the original: The Lord with his sword, that cruel
one, and that great one, and that strong one, shall punish this unwieldy,
this unruly criminal; and it shall be capital punishment: He shall slay the
dragon that is in the sea; for the wages of his sin is death. This shall
not only be a prevention of his doing further mischief, as the slaying of a
wild beast, but a just punishment for the mischief he has done, as the putting
of a traitor or rebel to death. God has a strong sword for the doing of this,
variety of judgments sufficient to humble the proudest and break the most
powerful of his enemies; and he will do it when the day of execution comes: In
that day he will punish, his day which is coming, Ps. xxxvii. 13. This is
applicable to the spiritual victories obtained by our Lord Jesus over the
powers of darkness. He not only disarmed, spoiled, and cast out, the prince of
this world, but with his strong sword, the virtue of his death and the
preaching of his gospel, he does and will destroy him that had the power of
death, that is, the devil, that great leviathan, that old serpent, the
dragon. He shall be bound, that he may not deceive the nations, and that is a
punishment to him (Rev. xx. 2, 3); and at length, for deceiving the nations,
he shall be cast into the lake of fire, Rev. xx. 10.
II. Of mercy to the church. In that same day, when God is punishing the
leviathan, let the church and all her friends be easy and cheerful; let those
that attend her sing to her for her comfort, sing her asleep with these
assurances; let it be sung in her assemblies,
1. That she is God's vineyard, and is under his particular care, v. 2,
3. She is, in God's eye, a vineyard of red wine. The world is as a
fruitless worthless wilderness; but the church is enclosed as a vineyard, a
peculiar place, and of value, that has great care taken of it and great pains
taken with it, and from which precious fruits are gathered, wherewith they
honour God and man. It is a vineyard of red wine, yielding the best and
choicest grapes, intimating the reformation of the church, that it now brings
forth good fruit unto God, whereas before it brought forth fruit to itself, or
brought forth wild grapes, ch. v. 4. Now God takes care, (1.) Of the
safety of this vineyard: I the Lord do keep it. He speaks this as
glorying in it that he is, and has undertaken to be, the keeper of Israel.
Those that bring forth fruit to God are and shall be always under his
protection. He speaks this as assuring us that they shall be so: I the
Lord, that can do every thing, but cannot lie nor deceive, I do keep
it; lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day. God's vineyard in this
world lies much exposed to injury; there are many that would hurt it, would
tread it down and lay it waste (Ps. lxxx. 13); but God will suffer no real
hurt or damage to be done it, but what he will bring good out of. He will keep
it constantly, night and day, and not without need, for the enemies are
restless in their designs and attempts against it, and, both night and day,
seek an opportunity to do it a mischief. God will keep it in the night of
affliction and persecution, and in the day of peace and prosperity, the
temptations of which are no less dangerous. God's people shall be preserved,
not only from the pestilence that walketh in darkness, but from the destruction
that wasteth at noon-day, Ps. xci. 6. This vineyard shall be well fenced.
(2.) Of the fruitfulness of this vineyard: I will water it every moment,
and yet it shall not be overwatered. The still and silent dews of God's grace
and blessing shall continually descend upon it, that it may bring forth much
fruit. We need the constant and continual waterings of the divine grace; for,
if that be at any time withdrawn, we wither, and come to nothing. God waters
his vineyard by the ministry of the word by his servants the prophets, whose
doctrine shall drop as the dew. Paul plants, and Apollos waters, but God gives
the increase; for without him the watchman wakes and the husbandman waters in
vain.
2. That, though sometimes he contends with his people, yet, upon their
submission, he will be reconciled to them, v. 4, 5. Fury is not in
him towards his vineyard; though he meets with many things in it that are
offensive to him, yet he does not seek advantages against it, nor is extreme
to mark what is amiss in it. It is true if he find in it briers and thorns
instead of vines, and they be set in battle against him (as indeed that in the
vineyard which is not for him is against him), he will tread them down and
burn them; but otherwise, "If I am angry with my people, they know what
course to take; let them humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and so
take hold of my strength with a sincere desire to make their peace with
me, and I will soon be reconciled to them, and all shall be well." God
sees the sins of his people and is displeased with them; but, upon their
repentance, he turns away his wrath. This may very well be construed as a
summary of the doctrine of the gospel, with which the church is to be watered
every moment. (1.) Here is a quarrel supposed between God and man; for here is
a battle fought, and peace to be made. It is an old quarrel, ever since sin
first entered. It is, on God's part, a righteous quarrel, but, on man's part,
most unrighteous. (2.) Here is a gracious invitation given us to make up this
quarrel, and to get these matters in variance accommodated: "Let him that
is desirous to be at peace with God take hold of his strength, of his strong
arm, which is lifted up against the sinner to strike him dead; and let him by
supplication keep back the stroke. Let him wrestle with me, as Jacob did,
resolving not to let me go without a blessing; and he shall be Israel--a
prince with God." Pardoning mercy is called the power of our Lord;
let him take hold of that. Christ is the arm of the Lord, ch.
liii. 1. Christ crucified is the power of God (1 Cor. i. 24); let him
by a lively faith take hold of him, as a man that is sinking catches hold of a
bough, or cord, or plank, that is within his reach, or as the malefactor took
hold of the horns of the altar, believing that there is no other name by which
he can be saved, by which he can be reconciled. (3.) Here is a threefold cord
of arguments to persuade us to do this. [1.] Time and space are given us to do
it in; for fury is not in God; he does not carry it towards us as great
men carry it towards their inferiors, when the one is in a fault and the other
in a fury. Men in a fury will not take time for consideration; it is, with
them, but a word and a blow. Furious men are soon angry, and implacable when
they are angry; a little thing provokes them, and no little thing will pacify
them. But it is not so with God; he considers our frame, is slow to anger,
does not stir up all his wrath, nor always chide. [2.] It is in vain to think
of contesting with him. If we persist in our quarrel with him, and think to
make our part good, it is but like setting briers and thorns before a
consuming fire, which will be so far from giving check to the progress of it
that they will but make it burn the more outrageously. We are not an equal
match for Omnipotence. Woe unto him therefore that strives with his
Maker! He knows not the power of his anger. [3.] This is the only way, and
it is a sure way, to reconciliation: "Let him take this course to make
peace with me, and he shall make peace; and thereby good, all good,
shall come unto him." God is willing to be reconciled to us if we be but
willing to be reconciled to him.
3. That the church of God in the world shall be a growing body, and come at
length to be a great body (v. 6): In times to come (so some read
it), in after-times, when these calamities are overpast, or in the days
of the gospel, the latter days, he shall cause Jacob to take root,
deeper root than ever yet; for the gospel church shall be more firmly fixed
than ever the Jewish church was, and shall spread further. Or, He shall
cause those of Jacob that come back out of their captivity, or (as we read
it) those that come of Jacob, to take root downward, and bear fruit upward,
ch. xxxvii. 31. They shall be established in a prosperous state, and
then they shall blossom and bud, and give hopeful prospects of a great
increase; and so it shall prove, for they shall fill the face of the world
with fruit. Many shall be brought into the church, proselytes shall be
numerous, some out of all the nations about that shall be to the God of Israel
for a name and a praise; and the converts shall be fruitful in the fruits of
righteousness. The preaching of the gospel brought forth fruit in all the
world (Col. i. 6), fruit that remains, John xv. 16.
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Correction
and Compassion.
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B.
C. 718.
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7 Hath he smitten him, as he smote those that
smote him? or is he slain according to the slaughter of them that are
slain by him? 8 In measure, when it shooteth forth, thou wilt
debate with it: he stayeth his rough wind in the day of the east wind.
9 By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged; and this is
all the fruit to take away his sin; when he maketh all the stones of the altar
as chalkstones that are beaten in sunder, the groves and images shall not
stand up. 10 Yet the defenced city shall be desolate, and
the habitation forsaken, and left like a wilderness: there shall the calf
feed, and there shall he lie down, and consume the branches thereof.
11 When the boughs thereof are withered, they shall be broken off: the women
come, and set them on fire: for it is a people of no
understanding: therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them, and he
that formed them will show them no favour. 12 And it shall come to
pass in that day, that the LORD
shall beat off from the channel of the river unto the stream of Egypt, and ye
shall be gathered one by one, O ye children of Israel. 13 And it
shall come to pass in that day, that the great trumpet shall be blown,
and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the
outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the LORD
in the holy mount at Jerusalem.
Here is the prophet again singing of mercy and judgment, not, as before,
judgment to the enemies and mercy to the church, but judgment to the church
and mercy mixed with that judgment.
I. Here is judgment threatened even to Jacob and Israel. They shall blossom
and bud (v. 6), but, 1. They shall be smitten and slain
(v. 7), some of them shall. If God find any thing amiss among them, he
will lay them under the tokens of his displeasure for it. Judgment shall begin
at the house of God, and those whom God has known of all the families of the
earth he will punish in the first place. 2. Jerusalem, their defenced city,
shall be desolate, v. 10, 11. "God having tried a variety of
methods with them for their reformation, which, as to many, have proved
ineffectual, he will for a time lay their country waste," which was
accomplished when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Chaldeans; then that habitation
was for a long time forsaken. If less judgments do not do the work, God
will send greater; for when he judges he will overcome. Jerusalem had
been a defenced city, not so much by art or nature as by grace and the divine
protection; but, when God was provoked to withdraw, her defence departed from
her, and then she was left like a wilderness. "And in the pleasant
gardens of Jerusalem cattle shall feed, shall lie down there, and there shall
be none to disturb them or drive them away; there they shall be levant and
couchant, and they shall eat the tender branches of the fruit-trees,"
which perhaps further signifies that the people should become an easy prey to
their enemies. "When the boughs thereof are withered as they grow
upon the tree, being blasted by winds and frosts and not pruned, they shall
be broken off for fuel, and the women and children shall come
and set them on fire. There shall be a total destruction, for the very
trees shall be destroyed." And this is a figure of the deplorable state
of the vineyard (v. 2) when it brought forth wild grapes (ch.
v. 2); and our Saviour seems to refer to this when he says of the branches of
the vine which abide not in him that they are cast forth and
withered, and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are
burned (John xv. 6), which was in a particular manner fulfilled in the
unbelieving Jews. The similitude is explained in the following words, It is
a people of no understanding, brutish and sottish, and destitute of the
knowledge of God, and that have no relish or savour of divine things, like a
withered branch that has no sap in it; and this is at the bottom of all those
sins for which God left them desolate, their idolatry first and afterwards
their infidelity. Wicked people, however in other things they may be wits and
politicians, in their greatest concerns are of no understanding; and their
ignorance, being wilful, shall not only not be their excuse, but it shall be
the ground of their condemnation; for therefore he that made them, that
gave them their being, will not have mercy on them, nor save them from
the ruin they bring upon themselves; and he that formed them into a
people, formed them for himself, to show forth his praise, seeing they do not
answer the end of their formation, but hate to be reformed, to be new-formed,
will reject them, and show them no favour; and then they are undone:
for, if he that made us by his power do not make us happy in his favour, we
had better never have been made. Sinners flatter themselves with hopes of
impunity, at least that they shall not be dealt with so severely as their
ministers tell them, because God is merciful and because he is their Maker.
But here we see how weak and insufficient those pleas will be; for, if they be
of no understanding, he that made them, though he made them, and hates nothing
that he has made, and though he has mercy in store for those who so far
understand their interests as to apply to him for it, yet on them he will have
no mercy, and will show them no favour.
II. Here is a great deal of mercy mixed with this judgment; for there are good
people mixed with those that are corrupt and degenerate, a remnant
according to the election of grace, on whom God will have mercy and to
whom he will show favour: and these promises seem to point at all the
calamities of the church, for which God would graciously provide these allays.
1. Though they shall be smitten and slain, yet not to that degree, and in that
manner, in which their enemies shall be smitten and slain, v. 7. God
has smitten Jacob, and he is slain. Many of those that understand
among the people shall fall by the sword and by flame many days, Dan. xi.
33. But it shall not be as those are smitten and slain, (1.) Who smote him
formerly, who were the rod of God's anger and the staff in his hand, which he
made us of for the correction of his people, and to whose turn it shall come
to be reckoned with even for that: the child is spared, but the rod is burnt.
(2.) Who shall afterwards be slain by him, when he shall get the dominion, and
repay them in their own coin, or slain for his sake in the pleading of his
cause. God's people and God's enemies are here represented, [1.] As struggling
with each other; so the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent have
been, are, and will be. In this contest there are slain on both sides. God
makes use of wicked men, not only to smite, but to slay his people; for they
are his sword, Ps. xvii. 13. But, when the cup of trembling comes to be put
into their hand, it will be much worse with them than ever it was with God's
people in their greatest straits. The seed of the woman has only his heel
bruised, but the serpent has his head crushed and broken. Note, Though God's
persecuted people may be great losers, and great sufferers, for a while, yet
those that oppress them will prove to be greater losers and greater sufferers
at last, here or hereafter; for God will render double to them, Rev. xviii. 6.
[2.] As sharing together in the calamities of this present time. They are both
smitten, both slain, and both by the hand of God; for there is one event to
the righteous and to the wicked. But is Jacob smitten as his enemies are?
No, by no means; to him the property is altered, and it becomes quite another
thing. Note, However it may seem to us, there is really a vast difference
between the afflictions and deaths of good people and the afflictions and
deaths of wicked people.
2. Though God will debate with them, yet it shall be in measure, and the
affliction shall be mitigated, moderated, and proportioned to their strength,
not to their deserts, v. 8. He will deal out afflictions to them as the
wise physician prescribes medicines to his patients, just such a quantity of
each ingredient, or orders how much blood shall be taken when a vein is
opened: thus God orders the troubles of his people, not suffering them to
be tempted above what they are able, 1 Cor. x. 13. He measures out their
afflictions by a little at a time, that they may not be pressed above measure;
for he knows their frame, and corrects in judgment, and does not stir up all
his wrath. When the affliction is shooting forth, when he is sending it out
and giving it its commission, then he debates in measure, and not in
extremity. He considers what we can bear when he begins to correct; and when
he proceeds in his controversy, so that it is the day of his east-wind,
which is not only blustering and noisy, but blasting and noxious, yet he stays
his rough wind, checks it, and sets bounds to it, does not suffer it to blow
so hard as was feared; when he is winnowing his corn, it is with a gentle
gale, that shall only blow away the chaff, but not the good corn. God has the
winds at his command, and every affliction under his check. Hitherto it
shall go, but no further. Let us not despair when things are at the worst;
be the winds ever so rough, ever so high, God can say unto them, Peace, be
still.
3. Though God will afflict them, yet he will make their afflictions to work
for the good of their souls, and correct them as the father does the child, to
drive out the foolishness that is bound up in their hearts (v. 9): By
this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged. This is the design
of the affliction, to this it is adapted as a proper means, and, by the grace
of God working with it, it shall have this blessed effect. It shall mortify
the habits of sin; by this those defilements of the soul shall be purged away.
It shall break them off from the practice of sin: This is all the fruit,
this is it that God intends, this is all the harm it will do them, to take
away their sin, than which they could not have a greater kindness done
them, though it be at the expense of an affliction. Therefore, because the
affliction is mitigated and moderated, and the rough wind stayed, therefore we
may conclude that he designs their reformation, not their destruction; and,
because he deals thus gently with us, we should therefore study to answer his
ends in afflicting us. The particular sin which the affliction was intended to
cure them of was the sin of idolatry, the sin which did most easily beset that
people and to which they were strangely addicted. Ephraim is joined to
idols. But by the captivity in Babylon they were not only weaned from this
sin, but set against it. Ephraim shall say, What have I do to any more with
idols? Jacob has his sin taken away, his beloved sin, when he makes all
the stones of the altar, of his idolatrous altar, the stones of which were
precious and sacred to him, as chalk-stones that are beaten asunder; he
not only has them in contempt, and values them no more than chalk-stones, but
he conceives an indignation at them, and, in a holy revenge, beats them
asunder as easily as chalk-stones are broken to pieces. The groves and the
images shall not stand before this penitent, but they shall be thrown down
too, never to be set up again. This was according to the law for the
demolishing and destroying of all the monuments of idolatry (Deut. vii. 5);
and according to this promise, since the captivity in Babylon, no people in
the world have such a rooted aversion to idols and idolatry as the people of
the Jews. Note, The design of affliction is to separate between us and sin,
especially that which has been our own iniquity; and then it appears
that the affliction has done us good when we keep at a distance from the
occasions of sin, and use all needful precaution that we may not only not
relapse into it, but not so much as be tempted to it, Ps. cxix. 67.
4. Though Jerusalem shall be desolate and forsaken for a time, yet there will
come a day when its scattered friends shall resort to it again out of all the
countries whither they were dispersed (v. 12, 13); though the body of
the nation is abandoned as a people of no understanding, yet those that are
indeed children of Israel shall be gathered together again, as the sheep of
the flock when the shepherds that scattered them are reckoned with, Ezek.
xxxiv. 10-19. Now observe concerning these scattered Israelites, (1.) Whence
they shall be fetched: The Lord shall beat them off as fruit from the
tree, or beat them out as corn out of the ear. He shall find them out, and
separate them from those among whom they dwelt, and with whom they seemed to
be incorporated, from the channel of the river Euphrates north-east, unto
Nile, the stream of Egypt, which lay south-west--those that were driven
into the land of Assyria, and were captives there in the land of their
enemies, where they were ready to perish for want of necessaries, and ready to
despair of deliverance--and those that were outcasts in the land of Egypt,
whither many of those that were left behind, after the captivity in Babylon,
went, contrary to God's express command (Jer. xliii. 6, 7), and there lived as
outcasts: God has mercy in store for them all, and will make it to appear
that, though they are cast out, they are not cast off. (2.) In what manner
they shall be brought back: "You shall be gathered one by one, not
in multitudes, not in troops forcing your way; but silently, and as it were by
stealth, dropping in, first one, and then another." This intimates that
the remnant that shall be saved consists but of few, and those saved with
difficulty, and so as by fire, scarcely saved; they shall not come for
company, but as God shall stir up every man's spirit. (3.) By what means they
shall be gathered together: The great trumpet shall be blown, and then they
shall come. Cyrus's proclamation of liberty to the captives is this great
trumpet, which awakened the Jews that were asleep in their thraldom to bestir
themselves; it was like the sounding of the jubilee-trumpet, which published
the year of release. This is applicable both to the preaching of the gospel,
by which sinners are gathered in to the grace of God, such as were outcasts
and ready to perish (those that were afar off are made nigh; the gospel
proclaims the acceptable year of the Lord), and also to the archangel's
trumpet at the last day, by which saints shall be gathered to the glory of
God, that lay as outcasts in their graves. (4.) For what end they shall be
gathered together: To worship the Lord in the holy mount at Jerusalem.
When the captives rallied again, and returned to their own land, the chief
thing they had their eye upon, and the first thing they applied themselves to,
was the worship of God. The holy temple was in ruins, but they had the holy
mount, the place of the altar, Gen. xiii. 4. Liberty to worship God is
the most valuable and desirable liberty; and, after restraints and
dispersions, a free access to his house should be more welcome to us than a
free access to our own houses. Those that are gathered by the sounding of the
gospel trumpet are brought in to worship God and added to the church; and the
great trumpet of all will gather the saints together, to serve God day and
night in his temple.
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