Isaiah 63 commentary

The prophet, in vision, beholds the Messiah returning in triumph from the conquest of his enemies, of whom Edom was a type. Travelling, not as wearied by the combat, but, in the greatness of his strength, prepared to overcome every opposing power. Messiah declares that he had been treading the wine-press of the wrath of God, Rev. 14:19; 19:13, and by his own power, without any human help, he had crushed his obstinate opposers, for the day of vengeance was determined on, being the appointed season for rescuing his church. Once, he appeared on earth in apparent weakness, to pour out his precious blood as an atonement for our sins; but he will in due time appear in the greatness of his strength. The vintage ripens apace; the day of vengeance, fixed and determined on, approaches apace; let sinners seek to be reconciled to their righteous Judge, ere he brings down their strength to the earth. Does Christ say, "I come quickly?" let our hearts reply, "Even so, come; let the year of the redeemed come."

The latter part of this chapter, and the whole of the next, seem to express the prayers of the Jews on their conversation. They acknowledge God's great mercies and favours to their nation. They confess their wickedness and hardness of heart; they entreat his forgiveness, and deplore the miserable condition under which they have so long suffered. The only-begotten Son of the Father became the Angel or Messenger of his love; thus he redeemed and bare them with tenderness. Yet they murmured, and resisted his Holy Spirit, despising and persecuting his prophets, rejecting and crucifying the promised Messiah. All our comforts and hopes spring from the loving-kindness of the Lord, and all our miseries and fears from our sins. But he is the Saviour, and when sinners seek after him, who in other ages glorified himself by saving and feeding his purchased flock, and leading them safely through dangers, and has given his Holy Spirit to prosper the labours of his ministers, there is good ground to hope they are discovering the way of peace.

They beseech him to look down on the abject condition of their once-favoured nation. Would it not be glorious to his name to remove the veil from their hearts, to return to the tribes of his inheritance? The Babylonish captivity, and the after-deliverance of the Jews, were shadows of the events here foretold. The Lord looks down upon us in tenderness and mercy. Spiritual judgments are more to be dreaded than any other calamities; and we should most carefully avoid those sins which justly provoke the Lord to leave men to themselves and to their deceiver. "Our Redeemer from everlasting" is thy name; thy people have always looked upon thee as the God to whom they might appeal. The Lord will hear the prayers of those who belong to him, and deliver them from those not called by his name.

CHAPTER 63

Is 63:1-19. Messiah Coming as the Avenger, in Answer to His People's Prayers.

Messiah, approaching Jerusalem after having avenged His people on His and their enemies, is represented under imagery taken from the destruction of "Edom," the type of the last and most bitter foes of God and His people (see Is 34:5, &c.).

1. Who--the question of the prophet in prophetic vision.

dyed--scarlet with blood (Is 63:2, 3; Re 19:13).

Bozrah--(See on Is 34:6).

travelling--rather, stately; literally, "throwing back the head" [Gesenius].

speak in righteousness--answer of Messiah. I, who have in faithfulness given a promise of deliverance, am now about to fulfil it. Rather, speak of righteousness (Is 45:19; 46:13); salvation being meant as the result of His "righteousness" [Maurer].

save--The same Messiah that destroys the unbeliever saves the believer.

2. The prophet asks why His garments are "dyed" and "red."

winefat--rather, the "wine-press," wherein the grapes were trodden with the feet; the juice would stain the garment of him who trod them (Re 14:19, 20; 19:15). The image was appropriate, as the country round Bozrah abounded in grapes. This final blow inflicted by Messiah and His armies (Re 19:13-15) shall decide His claim to the kingdoms usurped by Satan, and by the "beast," to whom Satan delegates his power. It will be a day of judgment to the hostile Gentiles, as His first coming was a day of judgment to the unbelieving Jews.

3. Reply of Messiah. For the image, see La 1:15. He "treads the wine-press" here not as a sufferer, but as an inflicter of vengeance.

will tread ... shall be ... will stain--rather preterites, "I trod ... trampled ... was sprinkled ... I stained."

blood--literally, "spirited juice" of the grape, pressed out by treading [Gesenius].

4. is--rather, "was." This assigns the reason why He has thus destroyed the foe (Zep 3:8).

my redeemed--My people to be redeemed.

day ... year--here, as in Is 34:8; 61:2, the time of "vengeance" is described as a "day"; that of grace and of "recompense" to the "redeemed," as a "year."

5. The same words as in Is 59:16, except that there it is His "righteousness," here it is His "fury," which is said to have upheld Him.

6. Rather, preterites, "I trod down ... made them drunk." The same image occurs Is 51:17, 21-23; Psa 75:8; Jr 25:26, 27.

will bring down ... strength to ... earth--rather, "I spilled their life-blood (the same Hebrew words as in Is 63:3) on the earth" [Lowth and Septuagint].

7. Israel's penitential confession and prayer for restoration (Psa 102:17, 20), extending from Is 63:7 to 64:12.

loving-kindnesses ... praises ... mercies ... loving-kindnesses--The plurals and the repetitions imply that language is inadequate to express the full extent of God's goodness.

us--the dispersed Jews at the time just preceding their final restoration.

house of Israel--of all ages; God was good not merely to the Jews now dispersed, but to Israel in every age of its history.

8. he--Jehovah "said," that is, thought, in choosing them as His covenant-people; so "said" (Psa 95:10). Not that God was ignorant that the Jews would not keep faith with Him; but God is here said, according to human modes of thought to say within Himself what He might naturally have expected, as the result of His goodness to the Jews; thus the enormity of their unnatural perversity is the more vividly set forth.

lie--prove false to Me (compare Psa 44:17).

so--in virtue of His having chosen them, He became their Saviour. So the "therefore" (Jr 31:33). His eternal choice is the ground of His actually saving men (Ep 1:3, 4).

9. he was afflicted--English Version reads the Hebrew as the Keri (Margin), does, "There was affliction to Him." But the Chetib (text) reads, "There was no affliction" (the change in Hebrew being only of one letter); that is, "In all their affliction there was no (utterly overwhelming) affliction" [Gesenius]; or, for "Hardly had an affliction befallen them, when the angel of His presence saved them" [Maurer]; or, as best suits the parallelism, "In all their straits there was no straitness in His goodness to them" [Houbigant], (Jud 10:16; Mi 2:7; 2Co 6:12).

angel of his presence--literally, "of His face," that is, who stands before Him continually; Messiah (Ex 14:19; 23:20, 21; Pr 8:30), language applicable to no creature (Ex 32:34; 33:2, 14; Nu 20:16; Mal 3:1).

bare them--(Is 46:3, 4; 40:11; Ex 19:4; De 32:11, 12).

10. vexed--grieved (Psa 78:40; 95:10; Ac 7:51; Ep 4:30; He 3:10, 17).

he fought--rather, "He it was that fought," namely, the angel of His presence [Horsley], (La 2:5).

11. remembered--Notwithstanding their perversity, He forgot not His covenant of old; therefore He did not wholly forsake them (Le 26:40-42, 44, 45; Psa 106:45, 46); the Jews make this their plea with God, that He should not now forsake them.

saying--God is represented, in human language, mentally speaking of Himself and His former acts of love to Israel, as His ground for pitying them notwithstanding their rebellion.

sea--Red Sea.

shepherd--Moses; or if the Hebrew be read plural, "shepherds," Moses, Aaron, and the other leaders (so Psa 77:20).

put ... Spirit ... within him--Hebrew, "in the inward parts of him," that is, Moses; or it refers to the flock, "in the midst of his people" (Nu 11:17, 25; Ne 9:20; Hag 2:5).

12. The right hand of Moses was but the instrument; the arm of God was the real mover (Ex 15:6; 14:21).

dividing the water--(Ne 9:11; Psa 78:13).

13. deep--literally, "the tossing and roaring sea."

wilderness--rather, the "open plain" [Horsley], wherein there is no obstacle to cause a horse in its course the danger of stumbling.

14. As a beast ... rest--image from a herd led "down" from the hills to a fertile and well-watered "valley" (Psa 23:2); so God's Spirit "caused Israel to rest" in the promised land after their weary wanderings.

to make ... name--(So Is 63:12; 2Sa 7:23).

15. Here begins a fervent appeal to God to pity Israel now on the ground of His former benefits.

habitation of ... holiness--(Is 57:15; De 26:15; 2Ch 30:27; Psa 33:14; 80:14).

zeal ... strength--evinced formerly for Thy people.

sounding of ... bowels--Thine emotions of compassion (Is 16:11; Jr 31:20; 48:36; Ho 11:8).

16. thou ... father--of Israel, by right not merely of creation, but also of electing adoption (Is 64:8; De 32:6; 1Ch 29:10).

though Abraham ... Israel--It had been the besetting temptation of the Jews to rest on the mere privilege of their descent from faithful Abraham and Jacob (Mt 3:9; Joh 8:39; 4:12); now at last they renounce this, to trust in God alone as their Father, notwithstanding all appearances to the contrary. Even though Abraham, our earthly father, on whom we have prided ourselves, disown us, Thou wilt not (Is 49:15; Psa 27:10). Isaac is not mentioned, because not all his posterity was admitted to the covenant, whereas all Jacob's was; Abraham is specified because he was the first father of the Jewish race.

everlasting--an argument why He should help them, namely, because of His everlasting immutability.

17. made us to err--that is, "suffer" us to err and to be hardened in our heart. They do not mean to deny their own blameworthiness, but confess that through their own fault God gave them over to a reprobate mind (Is 6:9, 10; Psa 119:10; Ro 1:28).

Return--(Nu 10:36; Psa 90:13).

18. people of ... holiness--Israel dedicated as holy unto God (Is 62:12; De 7:6).

possessed--namely, the Holy Land, or Thy "sanctuary," taken from the following clause, which is parallel to this (compare Is 64:10, 11; Psa 74:6-8).

thy--an argument why God should help them; their cause is His cause.

19. thine ... never--rather, "We are Thine from of old; Thou barest not rule over them" [Barnes]. Lowth translates, "We for long have been as those over whom Thou hast not ruled, who are not called by Thy name"; "for long" thus stands in contrast to "but a little while" (Is 63:18). But the analogy of Is 63:18 makes it likely that the first clause in this verse refers to the Jews, and the second to their foes, as English Version and Barnes translate it. The Jews' foes are aliens who have unjustly intruded into the Lord's heritage.

Who is this that cometh from Edom - Probably both Edom and Bozrah are only figurative expressions, to point out the place in which God should discomfit his enemies. Edom signifies red, and Bozrah, a vintage. Kimchi interprets the whole of the destruction of Rome.

I that speak in righteousness "I who publish righteousness" - A MS. has המדבר hammedabber, with the demonstrative article added with greater force and emphasis: The announcer of righteousness. A MS. has צדקה tsedakah, without ב be prefixed; and so the Septuagint and Vulgate. And thirty-eight MSS. (seven ancient) of Dr. Kennicott's, and many of De Rossi's, and one of my own, add the conjunction ו vau to רב rab, and mighty; which the Septuagint, Syriac, and Vulgate confirm. - L.

Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel - For ללבושך lilebushecha, twenty-nine MSS. (nine ancient) of Kennicott's, and thirty of De Rossi s, and one edition, have ללבושיך lilebusheycha in the plural; so the Septuagint and Syriac. And all the ancient Versions read it with מ mem, instead of the first ל lamed. But the true reading is probably מלבושך malbushecha in the singular, as in Isa 63:3. - L.

And of the people there was none with me - I was wholly abandoned by them: but a good meaning is, No man has had any part in making the atonement; it is entirely the work of the Messiah alone. No created being could have any part in a sacrifice that was to be of infinite merit.

And I will stain "And I have stained" - For אגאלתי egalti, a verb of very irregular formation, compounded, as they say, of the two forms of the preterite and future, a MS. has אגאלהו egalehu, the regular future with a pleonastic pronoun added to it, according to the Hebrew idiom: "And all my raiment, I have stained it." The necessity of the verb's being in the past tense seems to have given occasion to the alteration made in the end of the word. The conversive ו vau at the beginning of the sentence affects the verb, though not joined to it; of which there are many examples: - anithani remim umikkarney עניתני רמים ומקרני "And thou wilt hear me (or hear thou me) from among the horns of the unicorns," Psa 22:22. - L.

Instead of על בגדי al begadai, upon my garments, one of my ancient MSS. has לארץ בגדי larets begadai, to the earth: but this word is partly effaced, and על al written in the margin by a later hand.

And my fury "And mine indignation" - For וחמתי vachamathi, nineteen MSS. (three ancient) of Kennicott's, nine of De Rossi's, and one of mine, and four editions, have וצדקתי vetsidkathi, and my righteousness; from Isa 59:16, which I suppose the transcriber retained in his memory. It is true that the Versions are in favor of the common reading; but that noticed above seems to stand on good authority, and is a reading both pleasing and impressive. Opposite, in the margin, my MS. has the common reading by a later hand.

And make them drunk in my fury "And I crushed them in mine indignation" - For ואשכרם vaashkerem, and I made them drunken, twenty-seven MSS., (three ancient), twelve of De Rossi's, and the old edition of 1488, have ואשברם vaashabberem, and I crushed them: and so the Syriac and Chaldee. The Septuagint have omitted this whole line.

I will mention the loving-kindnesses of the Lord - The prophet connects the preceding mercies of God to the Jews with the present prospect he has of their redemption by the Messiah; thus making a circle in which eternal goodness revolves. The remaining part of this chapter, with the whole chapter following, contains a penitential confession and supplication of the Israelites in their present state of dispersion, in which they have so long marvellously subsisted, and still continue to subsist, as a people; cast out of their country; without any proper form of civil polity or religious worship, their temple destroyed, their city desolated and lost to them, and their whole nation scattered over the face of the earth, apparently deserted and cast off by the God of their fathers, as no longer his peculiar people.

They begin with acknowledging God's great mercies and favors to their nation, and the ungrateful returns made to them on their part, that by their disobedience they had forfeited the protection of God, and had caused him to become their adversary. And now the prophet represents them, induced by the memory of the great things that God had done for them, as addressing their humble supplication for the renewal of his mercies. They beseech him to regard them in consideration of his former loving-kindness, they acknowledge him for their Father and Creator, they confess their wickedness and hardness of heart, they entreat his forgiveness, and deplore their present miserable condition under which they have so long suffered. It seems designed as a formulary of humiliation for the Israelites, in order to their conversion.

The whole passage is in the elegiac form, pathetic and elegant; but it has suffered much in our present copy by the mistakes of transcribers.

The praises of the Lord "The praise of Jehovah" - For תהלות tehilloth, plural, twenty-nine MSS. (three ancient) and two editions, have תהלת tehillath, in the singular number; and so the Vulgate renders it; and one of the Greek versions, in the margin of Cod. Marchal. and in the text of MSS. Pachom. and 1. D. 2: την αινεσιν Κυριου, "the praise of the Lord." - L.

So he was their Savior. In all their affliction "And he became their Savior in all their distress" - I have followed the translation of the Septuagint in the latter part of the eighth, and the former part of the ninth verse; which agrees with the present text, a little differently divided as to thee members of the sentence. They read מכל miccol, out of all, instead of בכל bechol, in all, which makes no difference in the sense; and צר tsar they understand as ציר tsir. Και εγενετο αυτοις εις σωτηριαν εκ πασης θλιψεως αυτων· ου πρεσβυς, ουδε αγγελος·. "And he was salvation to them in all their tribulation; neither an ambassador nor an angel, but himself saved them." An angel of his presence means an angel of superior order, in immediate attendance upon God. So the angel of the Lord says to Zacharias, "I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God," Luk 1:19. The presence of Jehovah, Exo 33:14, Exo 33:15, and the angel, Exo 33:20, Exo 33:21, is Jehovah himself; here an angel of his presence is opposed to Jehovah himself, as an angel is in the following passages of the same book of Exodus. After their idolatrous worshipping of the golden calf, "when God had said to Moses, I will send an angel before thee - I will not go up in the midst of thee - the people mourned," Exo 33:2-4. God afterwards comforts Moses, by saying, "My presence (that is I myself in person, and not by an angel) will go with thee," Exo 33:14. Αυτος προπορευσομαι σου, "I myself will go before thee, "as the Septuagint render it.

The MSS. and editions are much divided between the two readings of the text and margin in the common copies, לא lo, not, and לו lo, to him. All the ancient Versions express the chetib reading, לא lo, not. "And he bare then and carried them all the days of old

And he took them up, and he bore them, all the days of old" - See the note on Isa 46:3 (note). - L.

And he fought against them - Twenty-six MSS. (ten ancient) and the first edition, with another, add the conjunction ו vau, והוא vehu, and he.

Moses and his people "Moses his servant" - For עמו ammo, his people, two MSS. (one of them ancient) and one of my own, (ancient), and one of De Rossi's, and the old edition of 1488, and the Syriac, read עבדו abdo, his servant. These two words have been mistaken one for the other in other places; Psa 78:71, and Psa 80:5, for עמו ammo, his people, and עמך ammecha, thy people, the Septuagint read עבדו abdo, his servant, and עבדך abdecha, thy servant.

Where is he that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of his flock? where etc. "How he brought them up from the sea, with the shepherd of his flock; how," etc. - For איה aiyeh, how, interrogative, twice, the Syriac Version reads איך eich, how, without interrogation, as that particle is used in the Syriac language, and sometimes in the Hebrew. See Rut 3:18; Ecc 2:16.

The shepherd of his flock - That is, Moses. The MSS. and editions vary in this word; some have it רעה roeh, in the singular number; so the Septuagint, Syriac, and Chaldee. Others רעי roey, plural, the shepherds. - L.

That led them through the deep - As a beast goeth down into the valley - In both these verses there is an allusion to the Israelites going through the Red Sea, in the bottom of which they found no more inconvenience than a horse would in running in the desert, where there was neither stone nor mud; nor a beast in the valley, where all was plain and smooth.

The Spirit of the Lord caused him to rest "The Spirit of Jehovah conducted them" - For תניחנו tenichennu, caused him to rest, the Septuagint have ὡδηγησεν αυτους, conducted them; they read תנחם tanchem. The Syriac, Chaldee, and Vulgate read תנחנו tanchennu, conducted him. Two MSS. have the word without the י yod in the middle.

And thy strength "And thy mighty power" - For גבורתיך geburotheycha, plural, thirty-two MSS. (seven ancient) and twenty-one of De Rossi's, and seven editions, have גבורתך geburathecha, singular.

Are they restrained? - For אלי elai, from (or in regard to) me, the Septuagint and Syriac read אלינו eleynu, from us. - L.

Our Redeemer; thy name is from everlasting "O deliver us for the sake of thy name" - The present text reads, as our translation has rendered it, "Our Redeemer, thy name is from everlasting." But instead of מעולם meolam, from everlasting, an ancient MS. has למען lemaan, for the sake of, which gives a much better sense. To show the impropriety of the present reading, it is sufficient to observe, that the Septuagint and Syriac translators thought it necessary to add עלינו aleynu, upon us, to make out the sense; That is, "Thy name is upon us, or we are called by thy name, from of old." And the Septuagint have rendered גאלנו goalenu, in the imperative mood, ῥυσαι ἡμας, deliver us. - L.

Why hast thou made us to err - A mere Hebraism, for why hast thou permitted us to err. So, Lead us not into temptation; do not suffer us to fall into that to which we are tempted.

The people of thy holiness have possessed it but a little while "It is little that they have taken possession of thy holy mountain" - The difficulty of the construction in this place is acknowledged on all hands. Vitringa prefers that sense as the least exceptionable which our translation has expressed; in which however there seems to be a great defect; that is, the want of that in the speaker's view must have been the principal part of the proposition, the object of the verb, the land, or it, as our translators supply it, which surely ought to have been expressed, and not to have been left to be supplied by the reader. In a word, I believe there is some mistake in the text; and here the Septuagint help us out; they had in their copy הר har, mountain, instead of עם am, people, του ορους του ἁγιου σου, the mountain of thy Holy One. "Not only have our enemies taken possession of Mount Sion, and trodden down thy sanctuary; even far worse than this has befallen us; thou hast long since utterly cast us off, and dost not consider us as thy peculiar people." - L.

Who - The church makes enquiry, and that with admiration, who it is that appears in such a habit or posture? Edom - Idumea, where Esau dwelt. It is put for all the enemies of the church. Bozrah - The capital city of Idumea. Here is also an allusion to the garments of this conqueror, Edom signifying red, and Bozrah a vintage. Glorious - Such as generals march before their armies in. Righteousness - Here Christ gives an answer, wherein he both asserts his fidelity, that he will faithfully perform what he hath promised, and that he will truly execute justice. Mighty - I have power to accomplish salvation.

Trodden - I have destroyed the enemies of my people, I have crushed them as grapes are crushed, this being an usual metaphor to describe the utter destruction of a people.

Of vengeance - To take vengeance on the enemies of my church.

None to help - Not that he needed it, but to see what men would do, in regard his people needed it; therefore the standing, or not standing by his people, is the same thing with standing, or not standing by him. Uphold - A metaphor, taken from a staff, that is an help to one that leans on it.

Drunk - They go as it were to and fro, not knowing what to do with themselves. Bring down - Whatever it is wherein their strength lies, he will bring to the very dust, to nothing.

Mention - Here begins a new matter, which contains the prophet's prayer, to the end of chap. 64, wherein he begins with mentioning the great kindnesses that God had shewn the Jews, and that emphatically, setting them forth with the greatest advantages.

He said - When he made a covenant with our fathers, and brought them out of Egypt. Not lie - That will keep my covenant. So he - Not Cyrus, Zerubbabel, or Nehemiah, but Christ himself.

The angel - The same that conducted them through the wilderness; the Lord Jesus Christ, who appeared to Moses in the bush. Saved them - From the house of bondage. Carried - He carried them in the arms of his power, and on the wings of his providence. And he is said to do it of old, To remember his ancient kindness for many generations past.

He remembered - This relates, either To the people, and then he is collectively taken, and so it looks like the language of the people in Babylon, and must be read, he shall remember. Or, It may look back to their condition in the wilderness, and thus they may properly say, Where is he? Or that God who delivered his people of old, to do the like for us now? There is a like phrase used by God, as it were recollecting himself, Where is he? Where am I with my former bowels, that moved me to help them of old? His people - What great things he had done for them by Moses. The sea - Here God speaks of himself, as in the former clause, that divided the sea for them. Shepherds - Moses and Aaron. Holy spirit - Those abilities and gifts, wherewith God furnished Moses, as properly proceeding from the Spirit.

As an horse - With as much ease and tenderness, as an horse led by the bridle. Not stumble - That, tho' the sea were but newly divided, yet it was dried and smoothed by the wind, that God sent, as it were to prepare the way before them.

The valley - A laden beast goeth warily and gently down the hill. Rest - Led them easily, that they should not be over - travelled, or fall down, through weariness; thus Jeremiah expresses it, Jer 31:2, and thus God gave them rest from their enemies, drowning them in the sea, and in their safe conduct, that they could not annoy or disturb them, leading them 'till he found them a place for resting; the word for leading, and resting, being much of a like notion, Zech 10:6, pointing at their several rests by the way, Numb 10:33, or it may be read by way of interrogation, as all the foregoing words, and be the close of that enquiry, And where is the spirit, that caused then to rest? Or, he led them to Canaan the place of their rest.

Look - Now the prophet begins to expostulate with God, and to argue both from the goodness of his nature, and from the greatness of his works. God sees every where, and every thing, but he is said to look down from heaven, because there is his throne whereon he sits in majesty. Behold - Not barely see, but behold with regard, and respect thy poor people. Where - What is become of that love, which of old would not let thee suffer thy people to be wronged? Strength - That power of thine manifested in those great acts? The founding - This is spoken of God after the manner of men.

Abraham - He who was our father after the flesh, though he be dead, and so ignorant of our condition. Redeemer - This is urged as another argument for pity; because their Father was their Redeemer. From everlasting - Thou hast been our Redeemer of old.

Made us - Suffered us to err. Hardened - Suffered it to be hardened. Thy fear - The fear of thee. Servants sake - For our sakes, that little remnant that are thy servants. Inheritance - The land of Canaan, which God gave them as an inheritance.

People - The people set apart for his servants. A little while - Comparatively to the promise, which was for ever. Sanctuary - The temple.

Thine - We continue so; we are in covenant, which they never were; and thus it is an argument they use with God to look upon them. Never - Not in that manner thou didst over us. They - Neither owned thee, nor were owned by thee.

1 WHo is this that cometh from Edom , with died garments from Bozrah▪ this that is glorious in his apparel , trave[illegible: 1+ letters]ing in the greatness of his strength ? I that speak in righteousness , mighty to save .

In these two verses either the Prophet as in some vision or Ex[illegible: 1+ letters]ly is put probably upon enquiry by God himself▪ rather than by Christ or Mic[illegible: 1+ letters]l, or Iudas Macchab[illegible: 1+ letters]us, as some have thought, and the rather, because this place doth thus suit best with chap. 59. 16, 17. Or, the Church makes enquiry, and that with admiration, who it is that appears in such a habit or posture, v. 1. and why▪ v. 2.

That is the Country of [illegible: 1 word], where Esau dwelt, and Esau himself was sometimes called by this name, Gen. 25. 30. and it is put Synecdo[illegible: 1+ letters]hically for all the Enemies of the Church, as Mo[illegible: 1+ letters] is Isa. 25. 10. See the Notes.

Or, [illegible: 1 word]: Thus Christ is described, Rev. 19. 13. and [illegible: 1+ letters]o also ver. 3. LXX the redness of Garments.

Such as Generals are wont to march before their Armies in, or great Conquerors, that walk in state and Gallantry from their Conquests.

In, or according to the Majesty of his Gate, being an indication of the greatness of his strength, and intimating that he hath throughly done his work, and fears no pursuing Enemy, as the Lion that keeps his Majestick Gate without the fear of any other Be[illegible: 1+ letters]st, Prov. 3[illegible: 1+ letters]. 30. this notes the invincibleness of his Power, and that it is his own strength, he needeth not the help of Armies or other instruments, and thus he will travel through all the Countries of his [illegible: 1 word].

Here the Lord Christ [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word] answer, wherein he both allerts hi[illegible: 1+ letters] [illegible: 1 word], [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1+ letters]orm what he hath promised, and that he [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word] ▪ [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word], R[illegible: 1+ letters]. 19. 11. and hereby also he distinguhneth himself from all Idol Gods, Isa. 45 19. 20.

I have power to accompl[illegible: 1+ letters]n Salvation, as [illegible: 1+ letters]owerful as faithful, I[illegible: 1+ letters]a. 19. 20.

s The Capital City of [illegible: 1 word]; see further ch. 34. 6. a parallel Text; and Edo[illegible: 1+ letters] and Bozra here are mentioned either 1. Not as relating to the places so called, but by way of allusion to the Garments of this Conqueror, Edom signifying Red, and Bozrah a [illegible: 1 word]. The one relating to his treading the Winepress, and the other to the blood sprinkled upon his Garments, v 3. the like manner of speaking you have, Psal. 120. 5. Or rather 2. Put Synecdo[illegible: 1+ letters]hically for all the Enemies of the Church, among whom, though Antichrist be no[illegible: 1+ letters] particularly designed, yet may be reckoned, being one of the chief of them, thus typ[illegible: 1+ letters]fying Christs Victories over all the Enemies of the Church, Rev. 19. 1[illegible: 1+ letters]. 20▪ 21. and this is usual; Babylon is put for any detestible City, & Moab for all that are vile and abominable, Isa. 25 10. so Edom here for all Gods Enemies; and he mentions these Idu[illegible: 1+ letters]eans rather than the Chaldaea[illegible: 1+ letters]s, who were the Jews chief and particular Enemies: 1. Partly to set forth the greatness of the enmity, being of old standing, and an inbred malignity, G[illegible: 1+ letters]n. 25. 22, 23. and irreconcilable, and perpetual, Amos 1. 1. and particularly put forth▪ when the Babylonians took Ierusalem, Psal. 137. 7. 2. Partly to comfort the Jews, both because God would take particular revenge upon Edo[illegible: 1+ letters], as he had threatned, and prophec[illegible: 1+ letters]ed by Obadia[illegible: 1+ letters] which is the substance of that whole Prophecy; And also these being their near Neighbours, God doth [illegible: 1 word] them security, that they shall not onely be delivered from the [illegible: 1 word], those remoter Enemies, but from the Idumeans also, wh[illegible: 1+ letters]e vicinity and neighbourhood might have been troublesom to th[illegible: 1+ letters]m.

Marginal references: [illegible: 1+ letters]v. 1[illegible: 1+ letters] ▪ [illegible: 1+ letters]3.; [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word].; [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word].

2 Wherefore art thou red in thine appar[illegible: 1+ letters], and thy garments like him that treadeth in the wine-fat?

Saving enquired of the Person, now he enquires the Reason of [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word] being thus sprinkled.

Marginal references: Rev. 19. 13.

3 I have trodden the wine-press alone , and of the people there was none with me : for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury , and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment.

i. e. I have destroyed the Enemies of my people, I [illegible: 1 word] crushed them as Grapes are crushed, this [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word] to describe the utter destruction of a People Psal. 44. 5. [illegible: 1 word] 25. [illegible: 1 word]. Rev. 14. 19, 20. and the ca[illegible: 1+ letters]ness o[illegible: 1+ letters] doing it▪ no [illegible: 1 word] th[illegible: 1+ letters]n to crush a bunch of Grapes.

To note his [illegible: 1 word] ▪ [illegible: 1 word] great Power, the Ma[illegible: 1+ letters]ers of Vineyards are not willing to do [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1+ letters]udgery themselves, neither, if they would, could they be able to [illegible: 1+ letters] nage a whole V[illegible: 1+ letters]tage by themselves: But Christ was willing to undertake it, and able to go through it without calling in the help of any other.

1. Not that he excludes the Jews but the other Nations that dwelt about them, therefore he [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word] was no[illegible: 1+ letters] with him, but God and his own [illegible: 1+ letters]eople may be [illegible: 1 word] as one, Iudg. 5. 23. And though this be true of his Passion, in which sense some would carry it, yet [illegible: 1+ letters]oth it not to well▪ [illegible: 1+ letters]uit with the design: For Christ is described here not as a Priest Sacrificing, or shedding of his own blood, but as a King, conquering and [illegible: 1 word] the blood of his, and his Churches Enemies; hence it is said their blood, not his own, to shew that it cannot fairly relate to his Passion: Besides Christ could expect no help in that, for he knew none could; but here he looked▪ and wondred that there was none, v. 5. And though it may be said, that he makes use of instruments, both in his conquering of temporal Enemies, and also spiritual, consider 1. That here he speaks as a General, and therefore the whole victory is a[illegible: 1+ letters]cribed to him alone. 2. They do it not only by commission and Authority der[illegible: 1+ letters]ved from him, but by strength conveyed to them from him, without which they could do no more than a Watch without a Spring, or Tool without the Work man's strength and skill: And that Christ may make it appear they are no Coadjutors that he needs, he makes them bring about such things as they never designed, as h[illegible: 1+ letters] speaks of the Assy[illegible: 1+ letters], see on ch. 10. 6, 7. and this is to be under[illegible: 1+ letters]od in like manner of Christs Conquest over spiritual Enemies, 2 [illegible: 1+ letters]or. 4. 7. See Acts 3. 12, 13.

This latter expression is but an aggravating of the former; it implies a kind of insulting, an allusio to Conquerours, who were wont to make the conquered to lie d[illegible: 1+ letters]wn, that others might trample on them, ch. 51. 23.

Or, [illegible: 1 word] sprinkled. As in [illegible: 1 word] of Grapes the juice sparkles upon the cloths, q. d. in his answer, thus came my Garments to be sprinkled.

It shall not be, or it [illegible: 1 word] not onely sprinkled, but perfectly stained, as it were [illegible: 1 word] in blood, ch. 9. 5.

4 For the day of vengeance is in mine heart , and the year of my redeemed is come .

Designed and purposed by me to take vengeance on the Enemies of my Church. Or, particularly the posterity of Esa[illegible: 1+ letters]; Da[illegible: 1+ letters] and Year is all one, save the latter may have some respect to the length of their Captivity.

Or, was in my heart, a desire o[illegible: 1+ letters] Execution, Psal. 40. 8. I have meditated or studied revenge, [illegible: 1+ letters]eing long forborn hath wrought in me resolutions of Revenge, therefore wonder not that I am so bloody, noting the severity of his proceedings against his Enemies.

The Iews have this title, because he redeemed them out of Egypt, and would also out of [illegible: 1 word].

Is at [illegible: 1+ letters]nd see Psal. 102. 13. ch. 34. 8. The former part of the verse shews that Christ is still about his work, though he d[illegible: 1+ letters]r the Execution till the fit time come; he may allude to the year of Jubilee.

Marginal references: Ch. 24. 8. & 61. 2.

5 And I looked, and there was none to help ; and I wondred that there was none to uphold : therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me, and my fury , it upheld me.

Not that he needed it, for help implies a de[illegible: 1+ letters]ct of power, or wisdom, or wealth, or opportunity, &c. But to see what men would do, in regard his people needed it, therefore the standing, or not standing by his people is the same thing with standing, or not standing by him, Iudg. 5. 23. Math. 25, 35, 40, 42, 45.

A Metaphor, taken from a staff, that is an help to one that leans on it.

Or zeal, viz. Against the Adversaries of the Church: God's [illegible: 1 word] notes his strength, and Power and his zeal sets this Power on work, chap. 9, 7. but see on chap. 59. 16, 17.

Marginal references: Ch. 59. 16.; Ps. 98. 1.

6 And I will tread down the people in mine anger, and make them drunk in my fury, and I will bring down their strength to the earth .

T[illegible: 1+ letters]e Hebrew often expresseth Calamit [illegible: 1+ letters]s by a cup o[illegible: 1+ letters] wine, or strong drink, by which the distre led Perso[illegible: 1+ letters]s are made drunk, Psa. 75. 8. chap. 51. 21, 22. they go as it were to and fro, not knowing what to do with themselves; and in special drunk with their own blood, chap. 49. 26. Rev. 16. 6.

What ever it is wherein their strength lies, their strong ones, or, their strong places, or deep Counsels, &c. he will bring to the very dust, to nothing; like drunken men they shall fall to the ground, not being able to stand, the most miserable condition, that men can fall into Psa. 36. 12.

7 I will mention the loving kindnesses of the LORD, and the praises of the LORD, according to all that the LORD hath bestowed on us, and the great goodness towards the house of Israel, which he hath bestowed on them, according to his mercies, and according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses.

Whether this ought to be the beginning of a new Chapter, or no, is not material, but certainly here begins a new matter, which contains the Prophets prayer, either in his own name, or the Church's to the end of chap. 64. wherein he begins with mentioning the great kindnesses, that God had shewn the Iews, and that Emphatically, setting it forth with the greatest advantages; and the more either to aggravate their great unkindness, or to give them some hope of finding him the like again in their distresses, or by way of argument with God to shew them mercy, because he had been so good to them.

8 For he said , Surely they are my people , children that will not lie , so he was their Saviour .

viz within himself of old, when he made a Covenant with our Fathers, and brought them out of Egypt.

In Covenant, though they are unworthy of me, yet I cannot but look upon them as my people, their enemies would persuade themselves, O they are not God's People, but cast ou[illegible: 1+ letters]s, that none cared for, or looked after, but God will own them.

That will keep my Covenant, they will not deal falsly with me, that are under such obligations, or, I presume they will not, though they did go after their Idols, and prove unfaithful to me in serving Baal and Ashteroth, &c. Now I presume they will do so no more; thus Parents are apt tenderly to think of those Children, that they have been indulgent to, that they will not offer to abuse their kindness, thus God thinks the best of them: or, he intimates here what they are obliged to do, though he knew they would do otherwise: or, they will not degenerate after I have renewed them.

viz. On these hopes and on these Conditions he undertook the charge of them, Exod. 19. 5, 6. Psal. 81. 8, 9. 10. or, he, so [illegible: 1+ letters]e alone was their Saviour, when none to save, none to uphold, then he saved them, not Cyrus Zerubbabel, Nehemiah, &c. But Christ himself.

9 In all their affliction he was afflicted , and the angel of his presence saved them : in his love and in his pity he redeemed them, and he bore them, and carried them all the days of old.

Because of all the afflictions they endured in Egypt; this notes the Sympathy that is in Christ, he having the same Spirit in him, that the Church hath, and her head and Father; or, in all their afflictions, no affliction, so the words may be read, their afflictions were rather favours then afflictions, all that befell them from the red Sea through the wilderness; and then Tzar is taken actively he afflicted not; this may note his Clemency, their sting was taken out; either way it ma[illegible: 1+ letters] be read according to the different spelling of [illegible: 1+ letters]o, whether by Aleph, or Va[illegible: 1+ letters]. The first seems the more genuin, they that list to drive this notion further, may consult the Latine Synopsis and the English Annotations

The same, that conducted them through the wilderness, called an Angel, Exo. 33. 2. and his Presence, ver. 14. and Iehovah, Exo. 13. 21. so that it must be the Lord Jesus Christ, who appeared to Moses in the bush, as Stephen doth interpret it, Act. 7. 35. &c. Other Angels are in his presence, but they were not always, he was ever so, therefore so called by way of eminency, hence the LXX express it not a L[illegible: 1+ letters]gate, or Angel, but himself.

From the house of Bondage brought them thorough the red Sea, the wilderness, &c. Their rock was Christ, 1 Cor. 10. 4.

This shews the ground of his kindness, they were a stubborn, Superstitious, Idolatrous people, yet Christs Love, and pity saved them for all that; It was because he loved them.

He left them not to shift for themselves, but bare them as a Father his Child, or an Eagle her young on[illegible: 1+ letters]s; he carried them in the arms of his power, see Chap. 46. 4. and on the wings of his Providence; see Deut 32. 10, 11, 12. and the Notes on Deut. 1. 31. And he is said to do it of old, To remember his ancient kindness for many Generations past; Olam signifies an Eternity, or a long time past, as well as to come, from the daies of Abraham or Moses, from their Bondage in Egypt, to the time of Isaiah; and it is used as an Argument to move him to do so still, he will carry her, till he bring her unto his Father.

Marginal references: Judg. 10. 16.; Deut. 7. 7, 8.; Exod. 19. 4. Deut. 1. 31. Chap. 46. 3.

10 But they rebelled, and vexed his holy spirit ; therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them.

Many of their Rebellions we read of in Exodus and Numbers in their Travels. The Lord tells Moses, that they had tempted him ten times, and therefore severely threatens them, Numb. 14. 22, 23. There were three principal Times of their Rebellion; 1. In the Wilderness, where they murmured for want of Bread and Water. 2. In Canaan, in no[illegible: 1+ letters] destroying, but onely making Tributary su[illegible: 1+ letters]h Nations as God commanded them to destroy. 3. Before the Babylonian Captivity, when they set themselves against the Prophets, which Stephen chargeth upon them, Acts 7. 51, 52. Among which also we may reckon all their behaviours under their Iudges, and their Kings: Or, we may understand it of their not answering God's End and Expectation.

Spirit of his Holiness; they vexed him by their obstinacy against his will and mind, and walking contrary unto him; not that there are such Passions in God, but it is spoken after the manner of men, as they are vexed when their will is crossed.

He overthrew them not onely in the Wilderness, Psal. 78. 31, 33, 59, 60, &c. sending among them fiery Serpents, Numb. 21. 6. but even in Canaan, stirring up against them Adversaries, sometimes the Philistines, anon the Midianites, and then the Moabites, &c.

Marginal references: Exod. 15. 24. Num. 14. 11. Psal. 78. 40, [illegible: 1+ letters]6. & 95. 9. Eph. 4. 30.

11 Then he remembred the days of old, Moses and his people , saying, Where is he that brought them up out of the sea , with the shepherd of his flock? Where is he that put his holy spirit within him?

Or yet.

This relates either, 1. To the People, and then He is collectively taken, and so it looks like the Language of the People in Babylon, and must be read, he shall remember. Or, 2. It may look back to their condition in the Wilderness, and thus they may properly say, Where is he? or that God that delivered his People of old, to do the like for us now? there is a like phrase used by Elisha, 2 King. 2. 14. Or rather, 3. To God as it were recollecting himself in a pathetical Prosopopoeia; q. d. Where is he? Where am I with my former bowels, that moved me to help them of old that I should now turn to be their Enemy? Or, Is my hand shortned that I cannot do it? And so in the following verses he gives a particular description how kind he had been to them formerly, the times mentioned, v. 9. and thus God seems to work upon himself.

Or, what great things he had done for them by Moses.

Here God speaks of himself, as in the former clause, viz. that divided the Sea for them, being one of the greatest Miracles that ever God wrought for his People; it is therefore frequently mentioned by way of encouragement to them, when they are in sore troubles.

Or, Shepherds, viz. Moses, that brought out his People as a Shepherd doth his Flock; He and Aaron are both joyned, Psal. 77. 20.

i. e. Those Abilities and Gifts, wherewith God furnished Moses as properly proceeding from the Spirit, he can do the like again, and qualifie Instruments for his work.

Marginal references: Heb. of eternity.; Exod. 14. 30. Jer. 2. 6.; Or, Shepherds, as Psal. 77. 20.; Neh. 9. 20.

12 That led them by the right hand of Moses, with his glorious arm , dividing the water before them, to make himself an everlasting name .

viz. The Strength and Power that God gave to Moses, expressed by the Right hand, that being usually esteemed the stronger, Psal. 16. 8. & 20. 6. Or, the Rod in his Right hand; by which understand also all the wonders that he did for them in Egypt.

Or, that Arm, wherewith God gained to himself so much glory, being alway present at the Assistance of Moses, Deut. 4. 34. Or, Moses his Right Hand led by God's glorious Arm, as Parents lead their Children, that God may have all the glory in the using of his Instruments.

The Red Sea, Exod. 14. 21. and also Iordan, Iosh. 3. 15, 16.

With reference both to his Power and Providence, as respecting either his Aim and End in doing what he did, or, the Effect of it when it was done. It got him Renown.

Marginal references: Exo. 14. 21. Josh. 3. 16.

13 That led them through the deep, as an horse in the wilderness , that they should not stumble .

Shewing, that God did not dry up the shallow places, but the very depth of the Sea, the very Channel, which is the deepest part. Or, between those heaps of waters, that stood up as a wall on each side of them▪ which might make it seem terrible, and therefore it is ascribed to their Faith, Heb. 11. 29.

Or, Plain, for so Wilderness is sometimes taken, and may be here [illegible: 1 word], by comparing it to a Valley in the next verse, viz. with as much safety as the Horse runs up and down in the plain ground. Or, with as much ease and tenderness, as an Horse led by the Bridle; not as men affrighted, but soberly, and orderly.

This may be taken Metaphorically, they came to no harm: Or, Properly that, though the Sea were but newly divided, yet it was so dried, that the mud, as also the unevenness of the ground, was not any occasion of their stumbling, or their sticking in it; probably so dried, and smoothed by the wind, that God sent as it were to prepare the way before them. See Chap. 4. 3, 4, 5.

14 As a beast goeth down into the valley , the spirit of the LORD caused him to rest : so didst thou lead thy people, to make thy self a glorious name.

A laden Beast goeth warily, and gently down the hill: or, as a Beast goeth down to the vally for Grass, that being a Mountainous Country; or, going down for going along, so the word is used, Isa. 38. 8. noting the evenness of their passage; or, alluding to their going down from the shore into that great Channel (as the coming out of it is called a going up, ver. 11.) now made through the Sea, orderly, and compo[illegible: 1+ letters]edly, not like the Gadaren's Swine through consternation, ready to break their necks for hast

i. e. The Lord himself.

Led them easily, that they should not be over-travelled▪ or [illegible: 1+ letters]all down, or come to any injury through wear[illegible: 1+ letters]ness; thus [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word] it, chap. 31. 2. and thus God gave them rest from their enemies, drowning of them in the Sea, and in their safe conduct, that they could not annoy or disturb them, leading them till he found them a place for resting, the word for [illegible: 1 word], and [illegible: 1 word] being much of a like notion, Zech. 10. 6. pointing at their several rests by the way, Num. 10. 33. or it may be read by way of Interrog[illegible: 1+ letters]tion, as all the foregoing words, and be the close of that inquiry, and where is the Spirit, that caused them to rest? or he led them to Canaan the place of their rest, so called, [illegible: 1 word]. 12. 9. and Psa. 9[illegible: 1+ letters]. 11.

The Prophet here by an Apostrople doth onely repeat the words in the name of the Jews, that he had spake before, ver. 12. q. d. as thou didst then, so maiest thou do again if thou pleasest.

15 Look down from heaven , and behold from the habitation of thy holiness , and of thy glory; Where is thy zeal , and thy strength , the sounding of thy bowels , and of thy mercies towards me? are they restrained [illegible: 1+ letters]?

Now they, or the Prophet begin to pray, and expostulate with God, and to argue both from the goodness of his nature, and from the greatness of his works, that he had done. God sees every where, and every thing, but he is said to [illegible: 1+ letters]ook down from Heaven, because there is his throne whereon he si[illegible: 1+ letters]s in greatest Majesty, and Splendor, behold is added to note, that he would not onely barely see, and look on, but that he would behold with regard, and respect his poor people in Captivity.

A description of heaven by a Periphrasis frequently used, and explained, De[illegible: 1+ letters]. 26. 15.

What is become of that love, which of old would not le[illegible: 1+ letters] thee suffer thy people to be wronged, chap. 37. 32.

That Power of thine manifested in those valiant Acts, which thou didst put forth for thy people, Psa. 145, 11, 12. and 150. 2. see Ier. 14 9.

By the sounding thereof may be understood those Sympathizing sighs, and compassionate groans, that proceed from the bowels, when they are affected, which being thought the subject of Pity are often by a Metonymy put for compassion, and hence proceed those rumblings of the bowels occasioned by strong passions called yern[illegible: 1+ letters]ngs; it is spoken of God after the manner of men? Is all this shut up from me? Thou that art naturally so compassionat, doest thou lay a restraint upon thy self, that thy bowels shall not move towards me? Or canst thou be thus straitned, Psal. 77. 7, 8, 9. and chap. 64. 12. an expostulation, that agrees very well with the next verse doubtless, &c. How can this come to pass?

Marginal references: Deut. 26. 15.; Or, the [illegible: 1+ letters] titude.; Jer. 31. 20. Hos. 11. 8.

16 Doubtless thou art our Father , though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel ▪ acknowledge us not: thou, O LORD, art our Father, our Redeemer , thy name is from everlasting .

Thus they urge God with that relation he stands in unto them, Mal. 2 10. therefore we as thy children expect the bowels, and compassions of a Father.

He who was our Father after the flesh▪ though he be dead, and so ignorant of our condition.

Or, Iacob, who was also our Father, and therefore a vain thing to call upon them; or if they were not dead, they could not help us out of our streights or, if they were alive, we are so much degenerate, that they would not own us. Some say Abraham, and Israel are here mentioned, and not Isaac, 1. Because the Covenant was made more solem[illegible: 1+ letters]y, and the promises more frequently renewed with them, then with Isaac. 2. Because with Abra[illegible: 1+ letters] the Covenant was first made, and the whole seed of Israel was taken into it, but not so of Isaac. Or else, 3. Abraham and Israel being named Isaac is included,

This is urged as another argument for pity, and the more because their Father was their Redeemer, Deu. 32. 6.

Or, Redeemer is thy name from Everlasting, thou hast been our Redeemer of old.

Marginal references: Or, our Red[illegible: 1+ letters]emer from everlasting is thy name.

17 O LORD, Why hast thou made us to err from thy ways , and hardned our heart from thy fear ? Return for thy servants sake , the tribes of thine inheritance .

Commandments: it is the Language of the godly among them being troubled, and therefore complaining, that so gracious a Father should leave them to such exigences: made us to sin by withdrawing thy Spirit, and leaving us to our selves, Psa. 81. 12. it is not to be understood, as if God did force them to it, but either lett[illegible: 1+ letters]ng loose their hearts, or by giving occasion to their hearts, being naturally too apt to Apostatize by their severe Afflictions, see this more cleared in the Latine Synopsis, or, make us desperate, by leaving us so long under the Oppression of the Adversary, thereby casting off thy Worship.

Or fear of thee, viz. as the object, Psa.. 5. 7. or that we may not fear thee, as seeing, that they may not see, Psa. 69. 23. or thy service, chap. 29. 13▪ so as to go after other gods.

Either our godly Fore fathers, or, particularly to Abraham Isaac, &c. viz. For the sake of thy promises made to them: or rather, our sakes, that little remnant that are thy Servants, be reconciled to us, Psa. 90. 13▪ for the next words seem to be put by apposition to the former.

Either. 1. The people themselves, which were divided into tribes or rather. 2. The land of Canaan, which God gave them as an inheritance as appears by the next vers. q. d. What will thine enemies say if thou suffer us to perish, or thine Inheritance to be destroyed; or rods, meaning their rulers, see chap. 43. 28. or heads of their tribes.

18 The people of thy holiness have possessed it but a little while : our adversaries have trodden down thy Sanctuary .

Or thy holy people, as being set a part for his Servants, holiness being to be understood for a Covenant separation from other people.

i. e. 1. Comparatively to the promise which was for ever, though they had possessed it about 1400 years. Or, 2. It seeming to them so, as things, especially such as are desirable, seem when they are past▪ Iob. 9. 25, 26. and Psa. 90. 4. or 3. they enjoyed but small spaces of time in quietness so they had small enjoyment of it, or 4. It may respect the Temple which stood but 400 years.

The Temple called the Sanctuary from the holiness of it, this our Adversaries the Babylonians have troden down. 2 Chro. 36. 19. and this also implies their ruining of their whole Ecclesiastical Policy.

Marginal references: Or, they [illegible: 1+ letters]ave possessed thy [illegible: 1+ letters] ly people for a while.; Psal. [illegible: 1+ letters]4. 7.

19 We are thine , thou never barest rule over them , they were not called by thy name .

We continue so; we are in Covenant, which they never were; and thus it is an Argument they use with God to look upon them. Or, the word thine, being not in the Text, some do otherwise interpret it; we are even in the same condition we were in at first, either in Egypt, or Ur of the Caldees, before thou broughtest us into Covenant, and are accordingly dealt with; we are become even as they, whom thou didst not bear Rule over. Or, we are as if thou hadst never ruled over us of old.

Not in that manner▪ or in that relation to them, that thou didst over us.

Neither owned thee, nor owned by thee; this phrase implies a near Relation in some Circumstance or other, as Wife, or Servant, or Child, &c. Chap. 4. 1.

Marginal references: Or, thy name was not called upon them.

Isa 63:1

This is the smallest of all the twenty-seven prophecies. In its dramatic style it resembles Psa 24:1-10; in its visionary and emblematical character it resembles the tetralogy in Isaiah 21:1-22:14. The attention of the seer is attracted by a strange and lofty form coming from Edom, or more strictly from Bozrah; not the place in Auranitis or Hauran (Jer 48:24) which is memorable in church history, but the place in Edomitis or Gebal, between Petra and the Dead Sea, which still exists as a village in ruins under the diminutive name of el-Busaire. “Who is this that cometh from Edom, in deep red clothes from Bozrah? This, glorious in his apparel, bending to and fro in the fulness of his strength?” The verb châmats means to be sharp or bitter; but here, where it can only refer to colour, it means to be glaring, and as the Syriac shows, in which it is generally applied to blushing from shame or reverential awe, to be a staring red (ὀξέως). The question, what is it that makes the clothes of this new-comer so strikingly red? is answered afterwards. But apart from the colour, they are splendid in their general arrangement and character. The person seen approaching is בּלבוּשׁו הדוּר (cf., Arab. ḥdr and hdr, to rush up, to shoot up luxuriantly, ahdar used for a swollen body), and possibly through the medium of hâdâr (which may signify primarily a swelling, or pad, ὄγκος, and secondarily pomp or splendour), “to honour or adorn;” so that hâdūr signifies adorned, grand (as in Gen 24:65; Targ. II lxx ὡραῖος), splendid. The verb tsâ‛âh, to bend or stoop, we have already met with in Isa 51:14. Here it is used to denote a gesture of proud self-consciousness, partly with or without the idea of the proud bending back of the head (or bending forward to listen), and partly with that of swaying to and fro, i.e., the walk of a proud man swinging to and fro upon the hips. The latter is the sense in which we understand tsō‛eh here, viz., as a syn. of the Arabic mutamâli, to bend proudly from one side to the other (Vitringa: se huc illuc motitans). The person seen here produces the impression of great and abundant strength; and his walk indicates the corresponding pride of self-consciousness. “Who is this?” asks the seer of a third person. But the answer comes from the person himself, though only seen in the distance, and therefore with a voice that could be heard afar off. “I am he that speaketh in righteousness, mighty to aid.” Hitzig, Knobel, and others, take righteousness as the object of the speaking; and this is grammatically possible (בּ = περί, e.g., Deu 6:7). But our prophet uses בצדק in Isa 42:6; Isa 45:13, and בצדקה in an adverbial sense: “strictly according to the rule of truth (more especially that of the counsel of mercy or plan of salvation) and right.” The person approaching says that he is great in word and deed (Jer 32:19). He speaks in righteousness; in the zeal of his holiness threatening judgment to the oppressors, and promising salvation to the oppressed; and what he threatens and promises, he carries out with mighty power. He is great (רב, not רב; S. ὑπερμαχῶν, Jer. propugnator) to aid the oppressed against their oppressors. This alone might lead us to surmise, that it is God from whose mouth of righteousness (Isa 45:23) the consolation of redemption proceeds, and whose holy omnipotent arm (Isa 52:10; Isa 59:16) carries out the act of redemption.

Isa 63:2

The seer surmises this also, and now inquires still further, whence the strange red colour of his apparel, which does not look like the purple of a king’s talar or the scarlet of a chlamys. “Whence the red on thine apparel, and thy clothes like those of a wine-presser?” מדּוּע inquires the reason and cause; למּה, in its primary sense, the object or purpose. The seer asks, “Why is there red ('âdōm, neuter, like rabh in Isa 63:7) to thine apparel?” The Lamed, which might be omitted (wherefore is thy garment red?), implies that the red was not its original colour, but something added (cf., Jer 30:12, and lâmō in Isa 26:16; Isa 53:8). This comes out still more distinctly in the second half of the question: “and (why are) thy clothes like those of one who treads (wine) in the wine-press” (begath with a pausal á not lengthened, like baz in Isa 8:1), i.e., saturated and stained as if with the juice of purple grapes?

Isa 63:3-6

The person replies: “I have trodden the wine-trough alone, and of the nations no one was with me: and I trode them in my wrath, and trampled them down in my fury; and their life-sap spirted upon my clothes, and all my raiment was stained. For a day of vengeance was in my heart, and the year of my redemption was come. And I looked round, and there was no helper; and I wondered there was no supporter: then mine own arm helped me; and my fury, it became my support. And I trode down nations in my wrath, and made them drunk in my fury, and made their life-blood run down to the earth.” He had indeed trodden the wine-press (pūrâh = gath, or, if distinct from this, the pressing-trough as distinguished from the pressing-house or pressing-place; according to Fürst, something hollowed out; but according to the traditional interpretation from pūr = pârar, to crush, press, both different from yeqebh: see at Isa 5:2), and he alone; so that the juice of the grapes had saturated and coloured his clothes, and his only. When he adds, that of the nations no one was with him, it follows that the press which he trode was so great, that he might have needed the assistance of whole nations. And when he continues thus: And I trod them in my wrath, etc., the enigma is at once explained. It was to the nations themselves that the knife was applied. They were cut off like grapes and put into the wine-press (Joe 3:13); and this heroic figure, of which there was no longer any doubt that it was Jehovah Himself, had trodden them down in the impulse and strength of His wrath. The red upon the clothes was the life-blood of the nations, which had spirted upon them, and with which, as He trode this wine-press, He had soiled all His garments. Nētsach, according to the more recently accepted derivation from nâtsach, signifies, according to the traditional idea, which is favoured by Lam 3:18, vigor, the vital strength and life-blood, regarded as the sap of life. ויז (compare the historical tense ויּז in 2Ki 9:33) is the future used as an imperfect, and it spirted, from nâzâh (see at Isa 52:15). אגאלתּי (from גּאל = גּעל, Isa 59:3) is the perfect hiphil with an Aramaean inflexion (compare the same Aramaism in Psa 76:6; 2Ch 20:35; and הלאני, which is half like it, in Job 16:7); the Hebrew form would be הגאלתּי.The Babylonian MSS have אגאלתי with chirek, since the Babylonian (Assyrian) system of punctuation has no seghol.

AE and A regard the form as a mixture of the perfect and future, but this is a mistake. This work of wrath had been executed by Jehovah, because He had in His heart a day of vengeance, which could not be delayed, and because the year (see at Isa 61:2) of His promised redemption had arrived. גּאּלי (this is the proper reading, not גּאוּלי, as some codd. have it; and this was the reading which Rashi had before him in his comm. on Lam 1:6) is the plural of the passive participle used as an abstract noun (compare היּים vivi, vitales, or rather viva, vitalia = vita). And He only had accomplished this work of wrath. Isa 63:5 is the expansion of לבדּי, and almost a verbal repetition of Isa 59:16. The meaning is, that no one joined Him with conscious free-will, to render help to the God of judgment and salvation in His purposes. The church that was devoted to Him was itself the object of the redemption, and the great mass of those who were estranged from Him the object of the judgment. Thus He found Himself alone, neither human co-operation nor the natural course of events helping the accomplishment of His purposes. And consequently He renounced all human help, and broke through the steady course of development by a marvellous act of His own. He trode down nations in His wrath, and intoxicated them in His fury, and caused their life-blood to flow down to the ground. The Targum adopts the rendering “et triturabo eos,” as if the reading were ואשׁבּרם, which we find in Sonc. 1488, and certain other editions, as well as in some codd. Many agree with Cappellus in preferring this reading; and in itself it is not inadmissible (see Lam 1:15). But the lxx and all the other ancient versions, the Masora (which distinguishes ואשׁכרם with כ, as only met with once, from ואשׁברם morf , with ב in Deu 9:17), and the great majority of the MSS, support the traditional reading. There is nothing surprising in the transition to the figure of the cup of wrath, which is a very common one with Isaiah. Moreover, all that is intended is, that Jehovah caused the nations to feel the full force of this His fury, by trampling them down in His fury.

Even in this short ad highly poetical passage we see a desire to emblematize, just as in the emblematic cycle of prophetical night-visions in Isaiah 21:1-22:14. For not only is the name of Edom made covertly into an emblem of its future fate, אדם becoming אדם upon the apparel of Jehovah the avenger, when the blood of the people, stained with blood-guiltiness towards the people of God, is spirted out, but the name of Bozrah also; for bâtsar means to cut off bunches of grapes (vindemiare), and botsrâh becomes bâtsı̄r, i.e., a vintage, which Jehovah treads in His wrath, when He punishes the Edomitish nation as well as all the rest of the nations, which in their hostility towards Him and His people have taken pleasure in the carrying away of Israel and the destruction of Jerusalem, and have lent their assistance in accomplishing them. Knobel supposes that the judgment referred to is the defeat which Cyrus inflicted upon the nations under Croesus and their allies; but it can neither be shown that this defeat affected the Edomites, nor can we understand why Jehovah should appear as if coming from Edom-Bozrah, after inflicting this judgment, to which Isa 41:2. refers. Knobel himself also observes, that Edom was still an independent kingdom, and hostile to the Persians (Diod. xv 2) not only under the reign of Cambyses (Herod. iii. 5ff.), but even later than that (Diod. xiii. 46). But at the time of Malachi, who lived under Artaxerxes Longimanus, if not under his successor Darius Nothus, a judgment of devastation was inflicted upon Edom (Mal 1:3-5), from which it never recovered. The Chaldeans, as Caspari has shown (Obad. p. 142), cannot have executed it, since the Edomites appear throughout as their accomplices, and as still maintaining their independence even under the first Persian kings; nor can any historical support be found to the conjecture, that it occurred in the wars between the Persians and the Egyptians (Hitzig and Köhler, Mal. p. 35). What the prophet’s eye really saw was fulfilled in the time of the Maccabaeans, when Judas inflicted a total defeat upon them, John Hyrcanus compelled them to become Jews, and Alexander Jannai completed their subjection; and in the time of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, when Simon of Gerasa avenged their cruel conduct in Jerusalem in combination with the Zelots, by ruthlessly turning their well-cultivated land into a horrible desert, just as it would have been left by a swarm of locusts (Jos. Wars of the Jews, iv 9, 7).

The New Testament counterpart of this passage in Isaiah is the destruction of Antichrist and his army (Rev 19:11.). He who effects this destruction is called the Faithful and True, the Logos of God; and the seer beholds Him sitting upon a white horse, with eyes of flaming fire, and many diadems upon His head, wearing a blood-stained garment, like the person seen by the prophet here. The vision of John is evidently formed upon the basis of that of Isaiah; for when it is said of the Logos that He rules the nations with a staff of iron, this points to Psa 2:1-12; and when it is still further said that He treads the wine-press of the wrath of Almighty God, this points back to Isaiah 63. The reference throughout is not to the first coming of the Lord, when He laid the foundation of His kingdom by suffering and dying, but to His final coming, when He will bring His regal sway to a victorious issue. Nevertheless Isa 63:1-6 has always been a favourite passage for reading in Passion week. It is no doubt true that the Christian cannot read this prophecy without thinking of the Saviour streaming with blood, who trode the wine-press of wrath for us without the help of angels and men, i.e., who conquered wrath for us. But the prophecy does not relate to this. The blood upon the garment of the divine Hero is not His own, but that of His enemies; and His treading of the wine-press is not the conquest of wrath, but the manifestation of wrath. This section can only be properly used as a lesson for Passion week so far as this, that Jehovah, who here appears to the Old Testament seer, was certainly He who became man in His Christ, in the historical fulfilment of His purposes; and behind the first advent to bring salvation there stood with warning form the final coming to judgment, which will take vengeance upon that Edom, to whom the red lentil-judgment of worldly lust and power was dearer than the red life-blood of that loving Servant of Jehovah who offered Himself for the sin of the whole world.

There follows now in Isaiah 63:7-64:11 a prayer commencing with the thanksgiving as it looks back to the past, and closing with a prayer for help as it turns to the present. Hitzig and Knobel connect this closely with Isa 63:1-6, assuming that through the great event which had occurred, viz., the overthrow of Edom, and of the nations hostile to the people of God as such, by which the exiles were brought one step nearer to freedom, the prophet was led to praise Jehovah for all His previous goodness to Israel. There is nothing, however, to indicate this connection, which is in itself a very loose one. The prayer which follows is chiefly an entreaty, and an entreaty appended to Isa 63:1-6, but without any retrospective allusion to it: it is rather a prayer in general for the realization of the redemption already promised. Ewald is right in regarding Isaiah 63:7-66:24 as an appendix to this whole book of consolation, since the traces of the same prophet are unmistakeable; but the whole style of the description is obviously different, and the historical circumstances must have been still further developed in the meantime.

The three prophecies which follow are the finale of the whole. The announcement of the prophet, which has reached its highest point in the majestic vision in Isa 63:1-6, is now drawing to an end. It is standing close upon the threshold of all that has been promised, and nothing remains but the fulfilment of the promise, which he has held up like a jewel on every side. And now, just as in the finale of a poetical composition, all the melodies and movements that have been struck before are gathered up into one effective close; and first of all, as in Hab, into a prayer, which forms, as it were, the lyrical echo of the preaching that has gone before.

Isa 63:7-8

The prophet, as the leader of the prayers of the church, here passes into the expanded style of the tephillah. Isa 63:7 “I will celebrate the mercies of Jehovah, the praises of Jehovah, as is seemly for all that Jehovah hath shown us, and the great goodness towards the house of Israel, which He hath shown them according to His pity, and the riches of His mercies.” The speaker is the prophet, in the name of the church, or, what is the same thing, the church in which the prophet includes himself. The prayer commences with thanksgiving, according to the fundamental rule in Psa 50:23. The church brings to its own remembrance, as the subject of praise in the presence of God, all the words and deeds by which Jehovah has displayed His mercy and secured glory to Himself. חסדי (this is the correct pointing, with ד protected by gaya; cf., כּדכד in Isa 54:12) are the many thoughts of mercy and acts of mercy into which the grace of God, i.e., His one purpose of grace and His one work of grace, had been divided. They are just so many tehillōth, self-glorifications of God, and impulses to His glorification. On כּעל, as is seemly, see at Isa 59:18. There is no reason for assuming that ורב־טוּב is equivalent to רב־טוב וּכעל, as Hitzig and Knobel do. רב־טוב commences the second object to אזכּיר, in which what follows is unfolded as a parallel to the first. Rabh, the much, is a neuter formed into a substantive, as in Psa 145:7; rōbh, plurality or multiplicity, is an infinitive used as a substantive. Tūbh is God’s benignant goodness; rachămı̄m, His deepest sympathizing tenderness; chesed (root חס, used of violent emotion; cf., Syr. chăsad, chăsam, aemulari; Arab. ḥss, to be tender, full of compassion), grace which condescends to and comes to meet a sinful creature. After this introit, the prayer itself commences with a retrospective glance at the time of the giving of law, when the relation of a child, in which Israel stood to Jehovah, was solemnly proclaimed and legally regulated. Isa 63:8 “He said, They are my people, children who will not lie; and He became their Saviour.” אך is used here in its primary affirmative sense. ישׁקּרוּ is the future of hope. When He made them His people, His children, He expected from them a grateful return of His covenant grace in covenant fidelity; and whenever they needed help from above, He became their Saviour (mōshı̄ă‛). We can recognise the ring of Exo 15:2 here, just as in Isa 12:2. Mōshı̄ă‛) is a favourite word in chapters 40-66 (compare, however, Isa 19:20 also).

Isa 63:9

The next v. commemorates the way in which He proved Himself a Saviour in heart and action. “In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the Angel of His face brought them salvation. In His love and in His pity He redeemed them, and lifted them up, and bare them all the days of the olden time.” This is one of the fifteen passages in which the chethib has לא, the keri לו. It is only with difficulty that we can obtain any meaning from the chethib: “in all the affliction which He brought upon them He did not afflict, viz., according to their desert” (Targ., Jer., Rashi); or better still, as tsâr must in this case be derived from tsūr, and tsăr is only met with in an intransitive sense, “In all their distress there was no distress” (Saad.), with which J. D. Michaelis compares 2Co 4:8, “troubled on every side, yet not distressed.” The oxymoron is perceptible enough, but the להם (צר לא), which is indispensable to this expression, is wanting. Even with the explanation, “In all their affliction He was not an enemy, viz., Jehovah, to them” (Döderlein), or “No man persecuted them without the angel immediately,” etc. (Cocceius and Rosenmüller), we miss להם or אתם. There are other still more twisted and jejune attempts to explain the passage with לא, which are not worth the space they occupy. Even in the older translators did not know how to deal with the לא in the text. The Sept. takes tsăr as equivalent to tsı̄r, a messenger, and renders the passage according to its own peculiar interpunctuation: οὐ πρέσβυς οὐδὲ ἄγγελος ἀλλ ̓ αὐτὸς ἔσωσεν αὐτούς (neither a messenger nor an angel, but His face, i.e., He Himself helped them: Exo 33:14-15; 2Sa 17:11). Everything forces to the conclusion that the keri לו is to be preferred. The Masora actually does reckon this as one of the fifteen passages in which לו is to be read for לא.There are fifteen passages in which the keri substitutes לו for לא. See Masora magna on Lev 11:21 (Psalter, ii. 60). If we add Isa 49:5; 1Ch 11:20; 1Sa 2:16, there are eighteen (Comm. on Job, at Job 13:15). But the first two of these are not reckoned, because they are doubtful; and in the third, instead of לּו being substituted for לא, לא is substituted for לו (Ges. Thes. 735, b). 2Sa 19:7 also is not a case in point, for there the keri is לוּ for לא.

Jerome was also acquainted with this explanation. He says: “Where we have rendered it, 'In all their affliction He was not afflicted,' which is expressed in Hebrew by lo, the adverb of negation, we might read ipse; so that the sense would be, 'In all their affliction He, i.e., God, was afflicted.' “ If we take the sentence in this way, “In all oppression there was oppression to Him,” it yields a forcible thought in perfect accordance with the Scripture (compare e.g., Jdg 10:16), an expression in harmony with the usage of the language (compare tsar-lı̄, 2Sa 1:26), and a construction suited to the contents (לו = ipsi). There is nothing to surprise us in the fact that God should be said to feel the sufferings of His people as His own sufferings; for the question whether God can feel pain is answered by the Scriptures in the affirmative. He can as surely as everything originates in Him, with the exception of sin, which is a free act and only originates in Him so far as the possibility is concerned, but not in its actuality. Just as a man can feel pain, and yet in his personality keep himself superior to it, so God feels pain without His own happiness being thereby destroyed. And so did He suffer with His people; their affliction was reflected in His own life in Himself, and shared Him inwardly. But because He, the all-knowing, all-feeling One, is also the almighty will, He sent the angel of His face, and brought them salvation. “The angel of His face,” says Knobel, “is the pillar of cloud and fire, in which Jehovah was present with His people in the march through the desert, with His protection, instruction, and guidance, the helpful presence of God in the pillar of cloud and fire.” But where do we ever read of this, that it brought Israel salvation in the pressure of great dangers? Only on one occasion (Exo 14:19-20) does it cover the Israelites from their pursuers; but in that very instance a distinction is expressly made between the angel of God and the pillar of cloud.

Consequently the cloud and the angel were two distinct media of the manifestation of the presence of God. They differed in two respects. The cloud was a material medium - the evil, the sign, and the site of the revealed presence of God. The angel, on the other hand, was a personal medium, a ministering spirit (λειτουργικὸν πνεῦμα), in which the name of Jehovah was indwelling for the purpose of His own self-attestation in connection with the historical preparation for the coming of salvation (Exo 23:21). He was the mediator of the preparatory work of God in both word and deed under the Old Testament, and the manifestation of that redeeming might and grace which realized in Israel the covenant promises given to Abraham (Gen 15). A second distinction consisted in the fact that the cloud was a mode of divine manifestation which was always visible; whereas, although the angel of God did sometimes appear in human shape both in the time of the patriarchs and also in that of Joshua (Jos 5:13.), it never appeared in such a form during the history of the Exodus, and therefore is only to be regarded as a mode of divine revelation which was chiefly discernible in its effects, and belonged to the sphere of invisibility: so that in any case, if we search in the history of the people that was brought out of Egypt for the fulfilment of such promises as Exo 23:20-23, we are forced to the conclusion that the cloud was the medium of the settled presence of God in His angel in the midst of Israel, although it is never so expressed in the thorah. This mediatorial angel is called “the angel of His face,” as being the representative of God, for “the face of God” is His self-revealing presence (even though only revealed to the mental eye); and consequently the presence of God, which led Israel to Canaan, is called directly “His face” in Deu 4:37, apart from the angelic mediation to be understood; and “my face” in Exo 33:14-15, by the side of “my angel” in Exo 32:34, and the angel in Exo 33:2, appears as something incomparably higher than the presence of God through the mediation of that one angel, whose personality is completely hidden by his mediatorial instrumentality. The genitive פניו, therefore, is not to be taken objectively in the sense of “the angel who sees His face,” but as explanatory, “the angel who is His face, or in whom His face is manifested.” The הוּא which follows does not point back to the angel, but to Jehovah, who reveals Himself thus. But although the angel is regarded as a distinct being from Jehovah, it is also regarded as one that is completely hidden before Him, whose name is in him. He redeemed them by virtue of His love and of His chemlâh, i.e., of His forgiving gentleness (Arabic, with the letters transposed, chilm; compare, however, chamūl, gentle-hearted), and lifted them up, and carried them (נשּׂא the consequence of נטּל, which is similar in sense, and more Aramaean; cf., tollere root tal, and ferre root bhar, perf. tuli) all the days of the olden time.

The prayer passes now quite into the tone of Ps 78 and 106, and begins to describe how, in spite of Jehovah’s grace, Israel fell again and again away from Jehovah, and yet was always rescued again by virtue of His grace. For it is impossible that it should leap at once in והמּה to the people who caused the captivity, and ויּזכּר have for its subject the penitential church of the exiles which was longing for redemption (Ewald). The train of thought is rather this: From the proofs of grace which the Israel of the olden time had experienced, the prophet passes to that disobedience to Jehovah into which it fell, to that punishment of Jehovah which it thereby brought upon itself, and to that longing for the renewal of the old Mosaic period of redemption, which seized it in the midst of its state of punishment. But instead of saying that Jehovah did not leave this longing unsatisfied, and responded to the penitence of Israel with ever fresh help, the prophet passes at once from the desire of the old Israel for redemption, to the prayer of the existing Israel for redemption, suppressing the intermediate thought, that Israel was even now in such a state of punishment and longing.

Isa 63:10

Israel’s ingratitude. “But they resisted and vexed His Holy Spirit: then He turned to be their enemy; He made war upon them.” Not only has ועצּבוּ (to cause cutting pain) קדשׁו את־רוּח as its object, but מרוּ has the same (on the primary meaning, see at Isa 3:8). In other cases, the object of merōth (hamrōth) is Jehovah, or His word, His promise, His providence, hence Jehovah himself in the revelations of His nature in word and deed; here it is the spirit of holiness, which is distinguished from Him as a personal existence. For just as the angel who is His face, i.e., the representation of His nature, is designated as a person both by His name and also by the redeeming activity ascribed to Him; so also is the Spirit of holiness, by the fact that He can be grieved, and therefore can feel grief (compare Eph 4:30, “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God”). Hence Jehovah, and the angel of His face, and the Spirit of His holiness, are distinguished as three persons, but so that the two latter derive their existence from the first, which is the absolute ground of the Deity, and of everything that is divine. Now, if we consider that the angel of Jehovah was indeed an angel, but that he was the angelic anticipation of the appearance of God the Mediator “in the flesh,” and served to foreshadow Him “who, as the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15), as “the reflection of His glory and the stamp of His nature” (Heb 1:3), is not merely a temporary medium of self-manifestation, but the perfect personal self-manifestation of the divine pânı̄m, we have here an unmistakeable indication of the mystery of the triune nature of God the One, which was revealed in history in the New Testament work of redemption. The subject to ויּהפך is Jehovah, whose Holy Spirit they troubled. He who proved Himself to be their Father (cf., Deu 32:6), became, through the reaction of His holiness, the very reverse of what He wished to be. He turned to be their enemy; הוּא, He, the most fearful of all foes, made war against them. This is the way in which we explain Isa 63:10, although with this explanation it would have to be accentuated differently, viz., ויהפך mahpach, להם pashta, לאויב zakeph, הוא tiphchah, נלחם־בם silluk. The accentuation as we find it takes נלחם־בם הוא as an attributive clause: “to an enemy, who made war against them.”

Isa 63:11-14

Israel being brought to a right mind in the midst of this state of punishment, longed fro the better past to return. “Then His people remembered the days of the olden time, of Moses: Where is He who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of his flock? where is He who put the spirit of His holiness in the midst of them; who caused the arm of His majesty to go at the right of Moses; who split the waters before them, to make Himself an everlasting name: who caused them to pass through abysses of the deep, like the horse upon the plain, without their stumbling? Like the cattle which goeth down into the valley, the Spirit of Jehovah brought them to rest: thus hast Thou led Thy people, to make Thyself a majestic name.” According to the accentuation before us, Isa 63:11 should be rendered thus: “Then He (viz., Jehovah) remembered the days of the olden time, the Moses of His people” (lxx, Targ., Syr., Jerome). But apart from the strange expression “the Moses of His people,” which might perhaps be regarded as possible, because the proper name mōsheh might suggest the thought of its real meaning in Hebrew, viz., extrahens = liberator, but which the Syriac rejects by introducing the reading ‛abhdō (Moses, His servant), we have only to look at the questions of evidently human longing which follow, to see that Jehovah cannot be the subject to ויּזכּר (remembered), by which these reminiscences are introduced. It is the people which begins its inquiries with איּה, just as in Jer 2:6 (cf., Isa 51:9-10), and recals “the days of olden time,” according to the admonition in Deu 32:7. Consequently, in spite of the accents, such Jewish commentators as Saad. and Rashi regard “his people” (‛ammō) as the subject; whereas others, such as AE, Kimchi, and Abravanel, take account of the accents, and make the people the suppressed subject of the verb “remembered,” by rendering it thus, “Then it remembered the days of olden time, (the days) of Moses (and) His people,” or in some similar way. But with all modifications the rendering is forced and lame. The best way of keeping to the accents is that suggested by Stier, “Then men (indef. man, the French on) remembered the days of old, the Moses of His people.”

But why did the prophet not say ויּזכּרוּ, as the proper sequel to Isa 63:10? We prefer to adopt the following rendering and accentuation: Then remembered (zakeph gadol) the days-of-old (mercha) of Moses (tiphchah) His people. The object stands before the subject, as for example in 2Ki 5:13 (compare the inversions in Isa 8:22 extr., Isa 22:2 init.); and mosheh is a genitive governing the composite “days of old” (for this form of the construct state, compare Isa 28:1 and Rth 2:1). The retrospect commences with “Where is He who led them up?” etc. The suffix of המּעלם (for המעלם, like רדם in Psa 68:28, and therefore with the verbal force predominant) refers to the ancestors; and although the word is determined by the suffix, it has the article as equivalent to a demonstrative pronoun (ille qui sursum duxit, eduxit eos). “The shepherd of his flock” is added as a more precise definition, not dependent upon vayyizkōr, as even the accents prove. את is rendered emphatic by yethib, since here it signifies unâ cum. The Targum takes it in the sense of instar pastoris gregis sui; but though עם is sometimes used in this way, את never is. Both the lxx and Targum read רעה; Jerome, on the other hand, adopts the reading רעי, and this is the Masoretic reading, for the Masora in Gen 47:3 reckons four רעה, without including the present passage. Kimchi and Abravanel also support this reading, and Norzi very properly gives it the preference. The shepherds of the flock of Jehovah are Moses and Aaron, together with Miriam (Ps. 77:21; Mic 6:4). With these (i.e., in their company or under their guidance) Jehovah led His people up out of Egypt through the Red Sea. With the reading רעי, the question whether beqirbô refers to Moses or Israel falls to the ground. Into the heart of His people (Neh 9:20) Jehovah put the spirit of His holiness: it was present in the midst of Israel, inasmuch as Moses, Aaron, Miriam, the Seventy, and the prophets in the camp possessed it, and inasmuch as Joshua inherited it as the successor of Moses, and all the people might become possessed of it. The majestic might of Jehovah, which manifested itself majestically, is called the “arm of His majesty;” an anthropomorphism to which the expression “who caused it to march at the right hand of Moses” compels us to give an interpretation worthy of God. Stier will not allow that תּפארתּו זרע is to be taken as the object, and exclaims, “What a marvellous figure of speech, an arm walking at a person’s right hand!” But the arm which is visible in its deeds belongs to the God who is invisible in His own nature; and the meaning is, that the active power of Moses was not left to itself, but he overwhelming omnipotence of God went by its side, and endowed it with superhuman strength. It was by virtue of this that the elevated staff and extended hand of Moses divided the Red Sea (Exo 14:16). בּוקע has mahpach attached to the ב, and therefore the tone drawn back upon the penultimate, and metheg with the tsere, that it may not be slipped over in the pronunciation. The clause וגו לעשׂות affirms that the absolute purpose of God is in Himself. But He is holy love, and whilst willing for Himself, He wills at the same time the salvation of His creatures. He makes to Himself an “everlasting name,” by glorifying Himself in such memorable miracles of redemption, as that performed in the deliverance of His people out of Egypt. According to the general order of the passage, Isa 63:13 apparently refers to the passage through the Jordan; but the psalmist, in Psa 106:9 (cf., Psa 77:17), understood it as referring to the passage through the Red Sea. The prayer dwells upon this chief miracle, of which the other was only an after-play. “As the horse gallops over the plain,” so did they pass through the depths of the sea יכּשׁלוּ לא (a circumstantial minor clause), i.e., without stumbling. Then follows another beautiful figure: “like the beast that goeth down into the valley,” not “as the beast goeth down into the valley,” the Spirit of Jehovah brought it (Israel) to rest, viz., to the menūchâh of the Canaan flowing with milk and honey (Deu 12:9; Psa 95:11), where it rested and was refreshed after the long and wearisome march through the sandy desert, like a flock that had descended from the bare mountains to the brooks and meadows of the valley. The Spirit of God is represented as the leader here (as in Psa 143:10), viz., through the medium of those who stood, enlightened and instigated by Him, at the head of the wandering people. The following כּן is no more a correlate of the foregoing particle of comparison than in Isa 52:14. It is a recapitulation, and refers to the whole description as far back as Isa 63:9, passing with נהגתּ into the direct tone of prayer.

Isa 63:15

The way is prepared for the petitions for redemption which follow, outwardly by the change in Isa 63:14, from a mere description to a direct address, and inwardly by the thought, that Israel is at the present time in such a condition, as to cause it to look back with longing eyes to the time of the Mosaic redemption. “Look from heaven and see, from the habitation of Thy holiness and majesty! Where is Thy zeal and Thy display of might? The pressure of Thy bowels and Thy compassions are restrained towards me.” On the relation between הבּיט, to look up, to open the eyes, and ראה, to fix the eye upon a thing. It is very rarely that we meet with the words in the reverse order, והביט ראה (vid., Hab 1:5; Lam 1:11). In the second clause of Isa 63:15, instead of misshâmayim (from heaven), we have “from the dwelling-place (mizzebhul) of Thy holiness and majesty.” The all-holy and all-glorious One, who once revealed Himself so gloriously in the history of Israel, has now withdrawn into His own heaven, where He is only revealed to the spirits. The object of the looking and seeing, as apparent from what follows, is the present helpless condition of the people in their sufferings, to which there does not seem likely to be any end. There are no traces now of the kin'âh (zeal) with which Jehovah used to strive on behalf of His people, and against their oppressors (Isa 26:11), or of the former displays of His gebhūrâh (וּגבוּרתך, as it is correctly written in Ven. 1521, is a defective plural). In Isa 63:15 we have not a continued question (“the sounding of Thy bowels and Thy mercies, which are restrained towards me?”), as Hitzig and Knobel suppose. The words 'ēlai hith'appâqū have not the appearance of an attributive clause, either according to the new strong thought expressed, or according to the order of the words (with אלי written first). On strepitus viscerum, as the effect and sign of deep sympathy, see at Isa 16:11. רחמים and מעים, or rather מעים (from מעה, of the form רעה) both signify primarily σπλἀγχνα, strictly speaking the soft inward parts of the body; the latter from the root מע, to be pulpy or soft, the former from the root חר, to be slack, loose, or soft. המון, as the plural of the predicate shows, does not govern רחמיך also. It is presupposed that the love of Jehovah urges Him towards His people, to relieve their misery; but His compassion and sympathy apparently put constraint upon themselves (hith'appēq as in Isa 42:14, lit., se superare, from 'âphaq, root פק), to abstain from working on behalf of Israel.

Isa 63:16

The prayer for help, and the lamentation over its absence, are now justified in Isa 63:16 : “For Thou art our Father; for Abraham is ignorant of us, and Israel knoweth us not. Thou, O Jehovah, art our Father; our Redeemer is from olden time Thy name.” Jehovah is Israel’s Father (Deu 32:6). His creative might, and the gracious counsels of His love, have called it into being: אבינוּ has not yet the deep and unrestricted sense of the New Testament “Our Father.” The second kı̄ introduces the reason for this confession that Jehovah was Israel’s Father, and could therefore look for paternal care and help from Him alone. Even the dearest and most honourable men, the forefathers of the nation, could not help it. Abraham and Jacob-Israel had been taken away from this world, and were unable to interfere on their own account in the history of their people. ידע and הכּיר suggest the idea of participating notice and regard, as in Deu 33:9 and Rth 2:10, Rth 2:19. יכּירנוּ has the vowel â (pausal for a, Isa 56:3) in the place of ē, to rhyme with ידענוּ (see Ges. §60, Anm. 2). In the concluding clause, according to the accents, מעולם גּאלנוּ are connected together; but the more correct accentuation is גאלנו tiphchah, מעולם mercha, and we have rendered it so. From the very earliest time the acts of Jehovah towards Israel had been such that Israel could call Him גאלנו.

Isa 63:17

But the in the existing state of things there was a contrast which put their faith to a severe test. “O Jehovah, why leadest Thou us astray from Thy ways, hardenest our heart, so as not to fear Thee? Return for Thy servants’ sake, the tribes of Thine inheritance.” When men have scornfully and obstinately rejected the grace of God, God withdraws it from them judicially, gives them up to their wanderings, and makes their heart incapable of faith (hiqshı̄ăch, which only occurs again in Job 39:16, is here equivalent to hiqshâh in Psa 95:8; Deu 2:30). The history of Israel from Isa 6:1-13 onwards has been the history of such a gradual judgment of hardening, and such a curse, eating deeper and deeper, and spreading its influence wider and wider round. The great mass are lost, but not without the possibility of deliverance for the better part of the nation, which now appeals to the mercy of God, and sighs for deliverance from this ban. Two reasons are assigned for this petition for the return of the gracious presence of God: first, that there are still “servants of Jehovah” to be found, as this prayer itself actually proves; and secondly, that the divine election of grace cannot perish.

Isa 63:18-19

But the existing condition of Israel looks like a withdrawal of this grace; and it is impossible that these contrasts should cease, unless Jehovah comes down from heaven as the deliverer of His people. Isa 63:8, Isa 63:19 (Isa 64:1). “For a little time Thy holy people was in possession. Our adversaries have trodden down Thy sanctuary. We have become such as He who is from everlasting has not ruled over, upon whom Thy name was not called. O that Thou wouldst rend the heaven, come down, the mountains would shake before thy countenance.” It is very natural to try whether yâreshū may not have tsârēnū for its subject (cf., Jer 49:2); but all the attempts made to explain the words on this supposition, show that lammits‛âr is at variance with the idea that yâreshū refers to the foes. Compare, for example, Jerome’s rendering “quasi nihilum (i.e., ad nihil et absque allo labore) possederunt populum sanctum tuum;” that of Cocceius, “propemodum ad haereditatem;” and that of Stier, “for a little they possess entirely Thy holy nation.” Mits‛âr is the harsher form for miz‛âr, which the prophet uses in Isa 10:25; Isa 16:14; Isa 29:17 for a contemptibly small space of time; and as ל is commonly used to denote the time to which, towards which, within which, and through which, anything occurs (cf., 2Ch 11:17; 2Ch 29:17; Ewald, §217,d), lammits‛âr may signify for a (lit. the well-known) short time (per breve tempus; like εἰς ἐπ  ̓κατ ̓ ἐνιαυτόν, a year long). If miqdâsh could mean the holy land, as Hitzig and others suppose, miqdâshekhâ might be the common object of both sentences (Ewald, §351, p. 838). But miqdash Jehovah (the sanctuary of Jehovah) is the place of His abode and worship; and “taking possession of the temple” is hardly an admissible expression. On the other hand, yârash hâ'ârets, to take possession of the (holy) land, is so common a phrase (e.g., Isa 60:21; Isa 65:9; Psa 44:4), that with the words “Thy holy people possessed for a little (time)” we naturally supply the holy land as the object. The order of the words in the two clauses is chiastic. The two strikingly different subjects touch one another as the two inner members. Of the perfects, the first expresses the more remote past, the second the nearer past, as in Isa 60:10. The two clauses of the v. rhyme - the holiest thing in the possession of the people, which was holy according to the choice and calling of Jehovah, being brought into the greatest prominence; bōsēs = πατεῖν, Luk 21:24; Rev 11:2. Hahn’s objection, that the time between the conquest of the land and the Chaldean catastrophe could not be called mits‛âr (a little while), may be answered, from the fact that a time which is long in itself shrinks up when looked back upon or recalled, and that as an actual fact from the time of David and Solomon, when Israel really rejoiced in the possession of the land, the coming catastrophe began to be foreboded by many significant preludes.

The lamentation in Isa 63:19 proceeds from the same feeling which caused the better portion of the past to vanish before the long continuance of the mournful present. Hitzig renders היינוּ “we were;” Hahn, “we shall be;” but here, where the speaker is not looking back, as in Isa 26:17, at a state of things which has come to an end, but rather at one which is still going on, it signifies “we have become.” The passage is rendered correctly in S.: ἐγενήθημεν (or better, γεγόναμεν) ὡς ἀπ  ̓αἰῶνος ὧν οὐκ ἐξουσίασας οὐδὲ ἐπικλήθη τὸ ὄνομά σου αὐτοῖς. The virtual predicate to hâyı̄nū commences with mē‛ōlâm: “we have become such (or like such persons) as,” etc.; which would be fully expressed by אשׁר כּעם, or merely כּעשׁר, or without אשׁר, and simply by transposing the words, וגו משׁלתּ כּלא (cf., Oba 1:16): compare the virtual subject אהבו יהוה in Isa 48:14, and the virtual object בשׁמי יקרא in Isa 41:25 (Ewald, §333,b). Every form of “as if” is intentionally omitted. The relation in which Jehovah placed Himself to Israel, viz., as its King, and as to His own people called by His name, appears not only as though it had been dissolved, but as though it had never existed at all. The existing state of Israel is a complete practical denial of any such relation. Deeper tones than these no lamentation could possibly utter, and hence the immediate utterance of the sigh which goes up to heaven: “O that Thou wouldst rend heaven!” It is extremely awkward to begin a fresh chapter with כּקדח (“as when the melting fire burneth”); at the same time, the Masoretic division of the vv. is unassailable.In the Hebrew Bibles, Isa 64:1-12 commences at the second v. of our version; and the first v. is attached to Isa 63:19 of the previous chapter. - Tr.

For Isa 63:19 (Isa 64:1) could not be attached to Isa 64:1-2, since this v. would be immensely overladen; moreover, this sigh really belongs to Isa 63:19 (Isa 63:19), and ascends out of the depth of the lamentation uttered there. On utinam discideris = discinderes, see at Isa 48:18. The wish presupposes that the gracious presence of God had been withdrawn from Israel, and that Israel felt itself to be separated from the world beyond by a thick party-wall, resembling an impenetrable black cloud. The closing member of the optative clause is generally rendered (utinam) a facie tua montes diffluerent (e.g., Rosenmüller after the lxx τακήσονται), or more correctly, defluerent (Jerome), as nâzal means to flow down, not to melt. The meaning therefore would be, “O that they might flow down, as it were to the ground melting in the fire” (Hitzig). The form nâzollu cannot be directly derived from nâzal, if taken in this sense; for it is a pure fancy that nâzōllū may be a modification of the pausal נזלוּ with ō for ā, and the so-called dagesh affectuosum). Stier invents a verb med. o. נזל. The more probable supposition is, that it is a niphal formed from zâlāl = nâzal (Ewald, §§193,c). But zâlal signifies to hang down slack, to sway to and fro (hence zōlēl, lightly esteemed, and zalzallı̄m, Isa 18:5, pliable branches), like zūl in Isa 46:6, to shake, to pour down;Just as the Greek has in addition to σαλ-εὐειν the much simpler and more root-like σεἰ-ειν; so the Semitic has, besides זל, the roots זא, זע: compare the Arabic סלסל, זאזע, זעזע, all three denoting restless motion. and nâzōllu, if derived from this, yields the appropriate sense concuterentur (compare the Arabic zalzala, which is commonly applied to an earthquake). The nearest niphal form would be נזלּוּ (or resolved, נזלוּ, Jdg 5:5); but instead of the a of the second syllable, the niphal of the verbs ע has sometimes o, like the verb ע ו (e.g., נגלּוּ, Isa 34:4; Ges. §67, Anm. 5).

The Triumphs of the Messiah. (b. c. 706.)

1 Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. 2 Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the wine-fat? 3 I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment. 4 For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come. 5 And I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld me. 6 And I will tread down the people in mine anger, and make them drunk in my fury, and I will bring down their strength to the earth.

It is a glorious victory that is here enquired into first and then accounted for. 1. It is a victory obtained by the providence of God over the enemies of Israel; over the Babylonians (say some), whom Cyrus conquered and God by him, and they will have the prophet to make the first discovery of him in his triumphant return when he is in the country of Edom: but this can by no means be admitted, because the country of Babylon is always spoken of as the land of the north, whereas Edom lay south from Jerusalem, so that the conqueror would not return through that country; the victory therefore is obtained over the Edomites themselves, who had triumphed in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans (Ps. cxxxvii. 7) and cut off those who, making their way as far as they could from the enemy, escaped to the Edomites (Obad. 12, 13), and were therefore reckoned with when Babylon was; for no doubt that prophecy was accomplished, though we do not meet in history with the accomplishment of it (Jer. xlix. 13), Bozrah shall become a desolation. Yet this victory over Edom is put as an instance or specimen of the like victories obtained over other nations that had been enemies to Israel. This over the Edomites is named for the sake of the old enmity of Esau against Jacob (Gen. xxvii. 41) and perhaps with an allusion to David's glorious triumphs over the Edomites, by which it should seem, more than by any other of his victories, he got himself a name, Ps. lx., title, 2 Sam. viii. 13, 14. But this is not all: 2. It is a victory obtained by the grace of God in Christ over our spiritual enemies. We find the garments dipped in blood adorning him whose name is called The Word of God, Rev. xix. 13. And who that is we know very well; for it is through him that we are more than conquerors over those principalities and powers which on the cross he spoiled and triumphed over.

In this representation of the victory we have,

I. An admiring question put to the conqueror, v. 1, 2. It is put by the church, or by the prophet in the name of the church. He sees a mighty hero returning in triumph from a bloody engagement, and makes bold to ask him two questions:—1. Who he is. He observes him to come from the country of Edom, to come in such apparel as was glorious to a soldier, not embroidered or laced, but besmeared with blood and dirt. He observes that he does not come as one either frightened or fatigued, but that he travels in the greatness of his strength, altogether unbroken. Triumphant and victorious he appears, And honour in his looks and habit wears. How strong he treads! how stately doth he go! Pompous and solemn is his pace, And full of majesty, as is his face; Who is this mighty hero—who?— Mr. Norris . The question, Who is this? perhaps means the same with that which Joshua put to the same person when he appeared to him with his sword drawn (Josh. v. 13): Art thou for us or for our adversaries? Or, rather, the same with that which Israel put in a way of adoration (Exod. xv. 11): Who is a God like unto thee? 2. The other question it, "Wherefore art thou red in thy apparel? What hard service hast thou been engaged in, that thou carriest with thee these marks of toil and danger?" Is it possible that one who has such majesty and terror in his countenance should be employed in the mean and servile work of treading the wine-press? Surely it is not. That which is really the glory of the Redeemer seems, primâ facie—at first, a disparagement to him, as it would be to a mighty prince to do the work of the wine-dressers and husbandmen; for he took upon him the form of a servant, and carried with him the marks of servitude.

II. An admirable answer returned by him.

1. He tells who he is: I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. He is the Saviour. God was Israel's Saviour out of the hand of their oppressors; the Lord Jesus is ours; his name, Jesus, signifies a Saviour, for he saves his people from their sins. In the salvation wrought he will have us to take notice, (1.) Of the truth of his promise, which is therein performed: He speaks in righteousness, and will therefore make good every word that he has spoken with which he will have us to compare what he does, that, setting the word and the work the one over against the other, what he does may ratify what he has said and what he has said may justify what he does. (2.) Of the efficacy of his power, which is therein exerted: He is mighty to save, able to bring about the promised redemption, whatever difficulties and oppositions may lie in the way of it. 'Tis I who to my promise faithful stand, I, who the powers of death, hell, and the grave, Have foil'd with this all-conquering hand, I, who most ready am, and mighty too, to save. Mr. Norris . 2. He tells how he came to appear in this hue (v. 3): I have trodden the wine-press alone. Being compared to one that treads in the wine-fat, such is his condescension, in the midst of his triumphs, that he does not scorn the comparison, but admits it and carries it on. He does indeed tread the wine-press, but it is the great wine-press of the wrath of God (Rev. xiv. 19), in which we sinners deserved to be cast; but Christ was pleased to cast our enemies into it, and to destroy him that had the power of death, that he might deliver us. And of this the bloody work which God sometimes made among the enemies of the Jews, and which is here foretold, was a type and figure. Observe the account the conqueror gives of his victory.

(1.) He gains the victory purely by his own strength: I have trodden the wine-press alone, v. 3. When God delivered his people and destroyed their enemies, if he made use of instruments, he did not need them. But among his people, for whom the salvation was to be wrought, no assistance offered itself; they were weak and helpless, and had no ability to do any thing for their own relief; they were desponding and listless, and had no heart to do any thing; they were not disposed to give the least stroke or struggle for liberty, neither the captives themselves nor any of their friends for them (v. 5): "I looked, and there was none to help, as one would have expected, nothing of a bold active spirit appeared among them; nay, there was not only none to lead, but, which was more strange, there was none to uphold, none that would come in as a second, that had the courage to join with Cyrus against their oppressors; therefore my arm brought about the salvation; not by created might or power, but by the Spirit of the Lord of hosts, my own arm." Note, God can help when all other helpers fail; nay, that is his time to help, and therefore for that very reason he will put forth his own power so much the more gloriously. But this is most fully applicable to Christ's victories over our spiritual enemies, which he obtained by a single combat. He trod the wine-press of his Father's wrath alone, and triumphed over principalities and powers in himself, Col. ii. 15. Of the people there was none with him; for, when he entered the lists with the powers of darkness, all his disciples forsook him and fled. There was non to help, none that could, none that durst; and he might well wonder that among the children of men, whose concern it was, there was not only none to uphold, but that there were so many to oppose and hinder it if they could.

(2.) He undertakes the war purely out of his own zeal. It is in his anger, it is in his fury, that he treads down his enemies (v. 3), and that fury upholds him and carries him on in this enterprise, v. 5. God wrought salvation for the oppressed Jews purely because he was very angry with the oppressing Babylonians, angry at their idolatries and sorceries, their pride and cruelty, and the injuries they did to his people, and, as they increased their abominations and grew more insolent and outrageous, his anger increased to fury. Our Lord Jesus wrought out our redemption in a holy zeal for the honour of his Father and the happiness of mankind, and a holy indignation at the daring attempts Satan had made upon both; this zeal and indignation upheld him throughout his whole undertaking. Two branches there were of this zeal that animated him:—[1.] He had a zeal against his and his people's enemies: The day of vengeance is in my heart (v. 4), the day fixed in the eternal counsels for taking vengeance on them; this was written in his heart, so that he could not forget it, could not let it slip; his heart was full of it, and it lay as a charge, as a weight, upon him, which made him push on this holy war with so much vigour. Note, There is a day fixed for divine vengeance, which may be long deferred, but will come at last; and we may be content to wait for it, for the Redeemer himself does so, though his heart is upon it. [2.] He had a zeal for his people, and for all that he designed to make sharers in the intended salvation: "The year of my redeemed has come, the year appointed for their redemption." There was a year fixed for the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt, and God kept time to a day (Exod. xii. 41); so there was for their release out of Babylon (Dan. ix. 2); so there was for Christ's coming to destroy the works of the devil; so there is for all the deliverances of the church, and the deliverer has an eye to it. Observe, First, With what pleasure he speaks of his people; they are his redeemed; they are his own, dear to him. Though their redemption is not yet wrought out, yet he calls them his redeemed, because it shall as surely be done as if it were done already. Secondly, With what pleasure he speaks of his people's redemption; how glad he is that the time has come, though he is likely to meet with a sharp encounter. "Now that the year of my redeemed has come, Lo, I come; delay shall be no longer. Now will I arise, saith the Lord. Now thou shalt see what I will do to Pharaoh." Note, The promised salvation must be patiently waited for till the time appointed comes; yet we must attend the promises with our prayers. Does Christ say, Surely I come quickly; let our hearts reply, Even so come; let the year of the redeemed come.

(3.) He will obtain a complete victory over them all. [1.] Much is already done; for he now appears red in his apparel; such abundance of blood is shed that the conqueror's garments are all stained with it. This was predicted, long before, by dying Jacob, concerning Shiloh (that is, Christ), that he should wash his garments in wine and his clothes in the blood of grapes, which perhaps this alludes to, Gen. xlix. 11. With ornamental drops bedeck'd I stood, And wrote my vict'ry with my en'my's blood. Mr. Norris . In the destruction of the antichristian powers we meet with abundance of blood shed (Rev. xiv. 20, xix. 13), which yet, according to the dialect of prophecy, may be understood spiritually, and doubtless so may this here. [2.] More shall yet be done (v. 6): I will tread down the people that yet stand it out against me, in my anger; for the victorious Redeemer, when the year of the redeemed shall have come, will go on conquering and to conquer, Rev. vi. 2. When he begins he will also make an end. Observe how he will complete his victories over the enemies of his church. First, He will infatuate them; he will make them drunk, so that there shall be neither sense nor steadiness in their counsels; they shall drink of the cup of his fury, and that shall intoxicate them: or he will make them drunk with their own blood, Rev. xvii. 6. Let those that make themselves drunk with the cup of riot (and then they are in their fury) repent and reform, lest God make them drunk with the cup of trembling, the cup of his fury. Secondly, He will enfeeble them; he will bring down their strength, and so bring them down to the earth; for what strength can hold out against Omnipotence?

Acknowledgments of Divine Goodness. (b. c. 706.)

7 I will mention the lovingkindnesses of the Lord , and the praises of the Lord , according to all that the Lord hath bestowed on us, and the great goodness toward the house of Israel, which he hath bestowed on them according to his mercies, and according to the multitude of his lovingkindnesses. 8 For he said, Surely they are my people, children that will not lie: so he was their Saviour. 9 In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old. 10 But they rebelled, and vexed his holy Spirit: therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them. 11 Then he remembered the days of old, Moses, and his people, saying, Where is he that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of his flock? where is he that put his holy Spirit within him? 12 That led them by the right hand of Moses with his glorious arm, dividing the water before them, to make himself an everlasting name? 13 That led them through the deep, as a horse in the wilderness, that they should not stumble? 14 As a beast goeth down into the valley, the Spirit of the Lord caused him to rest: so didst thou lead thy people, to make thyself a glorious name.

The prophet is here, in the name of the church, taking a review, and making a thankful recognition, of God's dealings with his church all along, ever since he founded it, before he comes, in the latter end of this chapter and in the next, as a watchman upon the walls, earnestly to pray to God for his compassion towards her in her present deplorable state; and it was usual for God's people, in their prayers, thus to look back.

I. Here is a general acknowledgment of God's goodness to them all along, v. 7. It was said, in general, of God's prophets and people (ch. lxii. 6) that they made mention of the Lord; now here we are told what it is in God that they do especially delight to make mention of, and that is his goodness, which the prophet here so makes mention of as if he thought he could never say enough of it. He mentions the kindness of God (which never appeared so evident, so eminent, as in his love to mankind in sending his Son to save us, Tit. iii. 4), his loving-kindness, kindness that shows itself in every thing that is endearing; nay, so plenteous are the springs, and so various the streams, of divine mercy, that he speaks of it in the plural number—his loving-kindnesses; for, if we would count the fruits of his loving-kindness, they are more in number than the sand. With his loving-kindnesses he mentions his praises, that is, the thankful acknowledgments which the saints make of his loving-kindness, and the angels too. It must be mentioned, to God's honour, what a tribute of praise is paid to him by all his creatures in consideration of his loving-kindness. See how copiously he speaks, 1. Of the goodness that is from God, the gifts of his loving-kindness—all that the Lord has bestowed on us in particular, relating to life and godliness, in our personal and family capacity. Let every man speak for himself, speak as he has found, and he must own that he has had a great deal bestowed upon him by the divine bounty. But we must also mention the favours bestowed upon his church, his great goodness towards the house of Israel, which he has bestowed on them. Note, We must bless God for the mercies enjoyed by others as well as for those enjoyed by ourselves, and reckon that bestowed on ourselves which is bestowed on the house of Israel. 2. Of the goodness that is in God. God does good because he is good; what he bestowed upon us must be traced up to the original; it is according to his mercies (not according to our merits) and according to the multitude of his loving-kindnesses, which can never be spent. Thus we should magnify God's goodness, and speak honourably of it, not only when we plead it (as David, Ps. li. 1), but when we praise it.

II. Here is particular notice taken of the steps of God's mercy to Israel ever since it was formed into a nation.

1. The expectations God had concerning them that they would conduct themselves well, v. 8. When he brought them out of Egypt and took them into covenant with himself he said, "Surely they are my people, I take them as such, and am willing to hope they will approve themselves so, children that will not lie," that will not dissemble with God in their covenantings with him, nor treacherously depart from him by breaking their covenant and starting aside like a broken bow. They said, more than once, All that the Lord shall say unto us we will do and will be obedient; and thereupon he took them to be his peculiar people, saying, Surely they will not lie. God deals fairly and faithfully with them, and therefore expects they should deal so with him. They are children of the covenant (Acts iii. 25), children of those that clave unto the Lord, and therefore it may be hoped that they will tread in the steps of their fathers' constancy. Note, God's people are children that will not lie; for those that will are not his children but the devil's.

2. The favour he showed them with an eye to these expectations: So he was their Saviour out of the bondage of Egypt and all the calamities of their wilderness-state, and many a time since he had been their Saviour. See particularly (v. 9) what he did for them as their Saviour. (1.) The principle that moved him to work salvation for them; it was in his love and in his pity, out of mere compassion to them and a tender affection for them, not because he either needed them or could be benefited by them. This is strangely expressed here: In all their affliction he was afflicted; not that the Eternal Mind is capable of grieving or God's infinite blessedness of suffering the least damage or diminution (God cannot be afflicted); but thus he is pleased to show forth the love and concern he has for his people in their affliction; thus far he sympathizes with them, that he takes what injury is done to them as done to himself and will reckon for it accordingly. Their cries move him (Exod. iii. 7), and he appears for them as vigorously as if he were pained in their pain. Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? This is matter of great comfort to God's people in their affliction that God is so far from afflicting willingly (Lam. iii. 33) that, if they humble themselves under his hand, he is afflicted in their affliction, as the tender parents are in the severe operations which the case of a sick child calls for. There is another reading of these words in the original: In all their affliction there was no affliction; though they were in great affliction, yet the property of it was so altered by the grace of God sanctifying it to them for their good, the rigour of it was so mitigated and it was so allayed and balanced with mercies, they were so wonderfully supported and comforted under it, and it proved so short, and ended so well, that it was in effect no affliction. The troubles of the saints are not that to them which they are to others; they are not afflictions, but medicines; saints are enabled to call them light, and but for a moment, and, with an eye to heaven as all in all, to make nothing of them. (2.) The person employed in their salvation—the angel of his face, or presence. Some understand it of a created angel. The highest angel in heaven, even the angel of his presence, that attends next the throne of his glory, is not thought too great, too good, to be sent on this errand. Thus the little ones' angels are said to be those that always behold the face of our Father, Matt. xviii. 10. But this is rather to be understood of Jesus Christ, the eternal Word, that angel of whom God spoke to Moses (Exod. xxiii. 20, 21), whose voice Israel was to obey. He is called Jehovah, Exod. xiii. 21; xiv. 21, 24. He is the angel of the covenant, God's messenger to the world, Mal. iii. 1. He is the angel of God's face, for he is the express image of his person; and the glory of God shines in the face of Christ. He that was to work out the eternal salvation, as an earnest of that, wrought out the temporal salvations that were typical of it. (3.) The progress and perseverance of this favour. He not only redeemed them out of their bondage, but he bore them and carried them all the days of old; they were weak, but he supported them by his power, sustained them by his bounty; when they were burdened, and ready to sink, he bore them up; in the wars they made upon the nations he stood by them and bore them out; though they were peevish, he bore with them and suffered their manners, Acts xiii. 18. He carried them as the nursing father does the child, though they would have tired any arms but his; he carried them as the eagle her young upon her wings, Deut. xxxii. 11. And it was a long time that he was troubled with them (if we may so speak): it was all the days of old; his care of them was not at an end even when they had grown up and were settled in Canaan. All this was in his love and pity, ex mero motu—of his mere good-will; he loved them because he would love them, as he says, Deut. vii. 7, 8.

3. Their disingenuous conduct towards him, and the trouble they thereby brought upon themselves (v. 10): But they rebelled. Things looked very hopeful and promising; one would have thought that they should have continued dutiful children to God, and then there was no doubt but he would have continued a gracious Father to them; but here is a sad change on both sides, and on them be the breach. (1.) They revolted from their allegiance to God and took up arms against him: They rebelled, and vexed his Holy Spirit with their unbelief and murmuring, besides the iniquity of the golden calf; and this had been their way and manner ever since. Though he was ready to say of them, They will not lie, though he had done so much for them, borne them and carried them, yet they thus ill requited him, like foolish people and unwise, Deut. xxxii. 6. This grieved him, Ps. cxv. 10. The ungrateful rebellions of God's children against him are a vexation to his Holy Spirit. (2.) Thereupon he justly withdrew his protection, and not only so, but made war upon them, as a prince justly does upon the rebels. He who had been so much their friend was turned to be their enemy and fought against them, by one judgment after another, both in the wilderness and after their settlement in Canaan. See the malignity and mischievousness of sin; it makes God an enemy even to those for whom he has done the part of a good friend, and makes him angry who was all love and pity. See the folly of sinners; they wilfully lose him for a friend who is the most desirable friend, and make him their enemy who is the most formidable enemy. This refers especially to those calamities that were of late brought upon them by their captivity in Babylon for their idolatries and other sins. That which is both the original and the great aggravation of their troubles was that God was turned to be their enemy.

4. A particular reflection made, on this occasion, upon what God did for them when he first formed them into a people: Then he remembered the days of old, v. 11.

(1.) This may be understood either of the people or of God. [1.] We may understand it of the people. Israel then (spoken of as a single person) remembered the days of old, looked into their Bibles, read the story of God's bringing their fathers out of Egypt, considered it more closely than ever they did before, and reasoned upon it, as Gideon did (Judg. vi. 13), Where are all the wonders that our fathers told us of? "Where is he that brought them up out of Egypt? Is he not as able to bring us up out of Babylon? Where is the Lord God of Elijah? Where is the Lord God of our fathers?" This they consider as an inducement and an encouragement to them to repent and return to him; their fathers were a provoking people and yet found him a pardoning God; and why may not they find him so if they return to him? They also use it as a plea with God in prayer for the turning again of their captivity, like that ch. li. 9, 10. Note, When the present days are dark and cloudy it is good to remember the days of old, to recollect our own and others' experiences of the divine power and goodness and make use of them, to look back upon the years of the right hand of the Most High (Ps. lxxvii. 5, 10), and remember that he is God, and changes not. [2.] We may understand it of God; he put himself in mind of the days of old, of his covenant with Abraham (Lev. xxvi. 42); he said, Where is he that brought Israel up out of the sea? stirring up himself to come and save them with this consideration, "Why should not I appear for them now as I did for their fathers, who were as undeserving, as ill-deserving, as they are?" See how far off divine mercy will go, how far back it will look, to find out a reason for doing good to his people, when no present considerations appear but what make against them. Nay, it makes that a reason for relieving them which might have been used as a reason for abandoning them. He might have said, "I have delivered them formerly, but they have again brought trouble upon themselves (Prov. xix. 19); there I will deliver them no more," Judg. x. 13. But no; mercy rejoices against judgment, and turns the argument the other way: "I have formerly delivered them and therefore will now."

(2.) Which way soever we take it, whether the people plead it with God or God with himself, let us view the particulars, and they agree very much with the confession and prayer which the children of the captivity made upon a solemn fast-day (Neh. ix. 5, &c.), which may serve as a comment on these verses which call to mind Moses and his people, that is, what God did by Moses for his people, especially in bringing them through the Red Sea, for that is it that is here most insisted on; for it was a work which he much gloried in and which his people therefore may in a particular manner encourage themselves with the remembrance of. [1.] God led them by the right hand of Moses (v. 12) and the wonder-working rod in his hand. Ps. lxxvii. 20, Thou leddest thy people like a flock by the hand of Moses. It was not Moses that led them, any more than it was Moses that fed them (John vi. 32), but God by Moses; for it was he that qualified Moses for, called him to, assisted and prospered him in that great undertaking. Moses is here called the shepherd of his flock; God was the owner of the flock and the chief shepherd of Israel (Ps. lxxx. 1); but Moses was a shepherd under him, and he was inured to labour and patience, and so fitted for this pastoral care, by his being trained up to keep the flock of his father Jethro. Herein he was a type of Christ the good shepherd, that lays down his life for the sheep, which was more than Moses did for Israel, though he did a great deal for them. [2.] He put his holy Spirit within him; the Spirit of God was among them, and not only his providence, but his grace, did work for them. Neh. ix. 20, Thou gavest thy good Spirit to instruct them. The spirit of wisdom and courage, as well as the Spirit of prophecy, was put into Moses, to qualify him for that service among them to which he was called; and some of his spirit was put upon the seventy elders, Num. xi. 17. This was a great blessing to Israel, that they had among them not only inspired writings, but inspired men. [3.] He carried them safely through the Red Sea, and thereby saved them out of the hands of Pharaoh. First, He divided the water before them (v. 12), so that it gave them not only passage, but protection, not only opened them a lane, but erected them a wall on either side. Secondly, He led them through the deep as a horse in the wilderness, or in the plain (v. 13); they and their wives and children, with all their baggage, went as easily and readily through the bottom of the sea (though we may suppose it muddy or stony, or both) as a horse goes along upon even ground; so that they did not stumble, though it was an untrodden path, which neither they nor any one else ever went before. If God make us a way, he will make it plain and level; the road he opens to his people he will lead them in. Thirdly, To complete the mercy, he brought them up out of the sea, v. 11. Though the ascent, it is likely, was very steep, dirty, slippery, and unconquerable (at least by the women and children, and the men, considering how they were loaded, Exod. xii. 34, and how fatigued), yet God by his power brought them up from the depths of the earth; and it was a kind of resurrection to them; it was as life from the dead. [4.] He brought them safely to a place of rest: As a beast goes down into the valley, carefully and gradually, so the Spirit of the Lord caused him to rest. Many a time in their march through the wilderness they had resting-places provided for them by the direction of the Spirit of the Lord in Moses, v. 11. And at length they were made to rest finally in Canaan, and the Spirit of the Lord gave them that rest according to the promise. It is by the Spirit of the Lord that God's Israel are caused to return to God and repose in him as their rest. [5.] All this he did for them by his own power, for his own praise. First, It was by his own power, as the God of nature, that has all the powers of nature at his command; he did it with his glorious arm, the arm of his gallantry, or bravery; so the word signifies. It was not Moses's rod, but God's glorious arm, that did it. Secondly, It was for his own praise, to make himself an everlasting name (v. 12), a glorious name (v. 14), that he might be glorified, everlastingly glorified, upon this account. This is that which God is doing in the world with his glorious arm, he is making to himself a glorious name, and it shall last to endless ages, when the most celebrated names of the great ones of the earth shall be written in the dust.

Earnest Pleadings. (b. c. 706.)

15 Look down from heaven, and behold from the habitation of thy holiness and of thy glory: where is thy zeal and thy strength, the sounding of thy bowels and of thy mercies toward me? are they restrained? 16 Doubtless thou art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: thou, O Lord , art our father, our redeemer; thy name is from everlasting. 17 O Lord , why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants' sake, the tribes of thine inheritance. 18 The people of thy holiness have possessed it but a little while: our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary. 19 We are thine: thou never barest rule over them; they were not called by thy name.

The foregoing praises were intended as an introduction to this prayer, which is continued to the end of the next chapter, and it is an affectionate, importunate, pleading prayer. It is calculated for the time of the captivity. As they had promises, so they had prayers, prepared for them against that time of need, that they might take with them words in turning to the Lord, and say unto him what he himself taught them to say, in which they might the better hope to prevail, the words being of God's own inditing. Some good interpreters think this prayer looks further, and that it expresses the complaints of the Jews under their last and final rejection from God and destruction by the Romans; for there is one passage in it (ch. lxiv. 4) which is applied to the grace of the gospel by the apostle (1 Cor. ii. 9), that grace for the rejecting of which they were rejected. In these verses we may observe,

I. The petitions they put up to God. 1. That he would take cognizance of their case and of the desires of their souls towards him: Look down from heaven, and behold, v. 15. They knew very well that God sees all, but they prayed that he would regard them, would condescend to favour them, would look upon them with an eye of compassion and concern, as he looked upon the affliction of his people in Egypt when he was about to appear for their deliverance. In begging that he would only look down upon them and behold them they did in effect appeal to his justice against their enemies, and pray for judgment against them (as Jehoshaphat, 2 Chron. xx. 11, 12, Behold, how they reward us. Wilt thou not judge them?), implicitly confiding in his mercy and wisdom as to the way in which he will relieve them (Ps. xxv. 18, Look upon my affliction and my pain): Look down from the habitation of thy holiness and of thy glory. God's holiness is his glory. Heaven is his habitation, the throne of his glory, where he most manifests his glory, and whence he is said to look down upon the earth, Ps. xxxiii. 14. His holiness is in a special manner celebrated there by the blessed angels (ch. vi. 3; Rev. iv. 8); there his holy ones attend him, and are continually about him; so that it is the habitation of his holiness. It is an encouragement to all his praying people, who desire to be holy as he is holy, that he dwells in a holy place. 2. That he would take a course for their relief (v. 17): "Return; change thy way towards us, and proceed not in thy controversy with us; return in mercy, and let us have not only a gracious look towards us, but thy gracious presence with us." God's people dread nothing more than his departures from them and desire nothing more than his returns to them.

II. The complaints they made to God. Two things they complained of:—1. That they were given up to themselves, and God's grace did not recover them, v. 17. It is a strange expostulation, "Why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, that is, many among us, the generality of us; and this complaint we have all of us some cause to make that thou hast hardened our heart from thy fear." Some make it to be the language of those among them that were impious and profane; when the prophets reproved them for the error of their ways, their hardness of heart, and contempt of God's word and commandments, they with a daring impudence charged their sin upon God, made him the author of it, and asked why doth he then find fault? Note, Those are wicked indeed that lay the blame of their wickedness upon God. But I rather take it to be the language of those among them that lamented the unbelief and impenitence of their people, not accusing God of being the author of their wickedness, but complaining of it to him. They owned that they had erred from God's ways, that their hearts had been hardened from his fear, that they had not received the impressions which the fear of God ought to make upon them and this was the cause of all their errors from his ways; or from his fear may mean from the true worship of God, and that is a hard heart indeed which is alienated from the service of a God so incontestably great and good. Now this they complain of, as their great misery and burden, that God had for their sins left them to this, had permitted them to err from his ways and had justly withheld his grace, so that their hearts were hardened from his fear. When they ask, Why hast thou done this? it is not as charging him with wrong, but lamenting it as a sore judgment. God had caused them to err and hardened their hearts, not only by withdrawing his Spirit from them, because they had grieved, and vexed, and quenched him (v. 10), but by a judicial sentence upon them (Go, make the heart of this people fat, ch. vi. 9, 10) and by his providences concerning them, which had proved sad occasions for their departure from him. David complains of his banishment, because in it he was in effect bidden to go and serve other gods, 1 Sam. xxvi. 19. Their troubles had alienated many of them from God, and prejudiced them against his service; and, because the rod of the wicked had lain long on their lot, they were ready to put forth their hand unto iniquity (Ps. cxxv. 3), and this was the thing they complained most of; their afflictions were their temptations, and to many of them invincible ones. Note, Convinced consciences complain most of spiritual judgments and dread that most in an affliction which draws them from God and duty. 2. That they were given up to their enemies, and God's providence did not rescue and relieve them (v. 18): Our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary. As it was a grief to them that in their captivity the generality of them had lost their affection to God's worship, and had their hearts hardened from it by their affliction, so it was a further grief that they were deprived of their opportunities of worshipping God in solemn assemblies. They complained not so much of the adversaries treading down their houses and cities as of their treading down God's sanctuary, because thereby God was immediately affronted, and they were robbed of the comforts they valued most and took most pleasure in.

III. The pleas they urged with God for mercy and deliverance. 1. They pleaded the tender compassion God used to show to his people and his ability and readiness to appear for them, v. 15. The most prevailing arguments in prayer are those that are taken from God himself; such these are. Where is thy zeal and thy strength? God has a zeal for his own glory, and for the comfort of his people; his name is Jealous; and he is a jealous God; and he has strength proportionable to secure his own glory and the interest of his people, in despite of all opposition. Now where are these? Have they not formerly appeared? Why do they not appear now? It cannot be that divine zeal, which is infinitely wise and just, should be cooled, that divine strength, which is infinite, should be weakened. Nay, his people had experienced not only his zeal and his strength, but the sounding of his bowels, or rather the yearning of them, such a degree of compassion to them as in men causes a commotion and agitation within them, as Hos. xi. 8, My heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together; and Jer. xxxi. 20, My bowels are troubled (or sound) for him. "Thus God used to be affected towards his people, and to express a multitude of mercies towards them; but where are they now? Are they restrained? Ps. lxxvii. 9. Has God, who so often remembered to be gracious, now forgotten to be so? Has he in anger shut up his tender mercies? It can never be." Note, We may ground good expectations of further mercy upon our experiences of former mercy. 2. They pleaded God's relation to them as their Father (v. 16): "Thy tender mercies are not restrained, for they are the tender mercies of a father, who, though he may be for a time displeased with his child, will yet, through the force of natural affection, soon be reconciled. Doubtless thou art our Father, and therefore thy bowels will yearn towards us." Such good thoughts of God as these we should always keep up in our hearts. However it be, yet God is good; for he is our Father. They own themselves fatherless if he be not their Father, and so cast themselves upon him with whom the fatherless findeth mercy, Hos. xiv. 3. It was the honour of their nation that they had Abraham to their father (Matt. iii. 9), who was the friend of God, and Israel, who was a prince with God; but what the better were they for that unless they had God himself for their Father? "Abraham and Israel cannot help us; they have not the power that God has; they are dead long since, and are ignorant of us, and acknowledge us not; they know not what our case is, nor what our wants are, and therefore know not which way to do us a kindness. If Abraham and Israel were alive with us, they would intercede for us and advise us; but they have gone to the other world, and we know not that they have any communication at all with this world, and therefore they are not capable of doing us any kindness any further than that we have the honour of being called their children." When the father is dead his sons come to honour and he knows it not, Job xiv. 21. "But thou, O Lord! art our Father still (the fathers of our flesh may call themselves ever-loving; but they are not ever-living; it is God only that is the immortal Father, that always knows us, and is never at a distance from us), and therefore our Redeemer from everlasting is thy name, the name by which we will know and own thee. It is the name by which from of old thou hast been known; thy people have always looked upon thee as the God to whom they might appeal to redress their grievances and plead their cause. Nay" (according to the sense some give of this place), "though Abraham and Israel not only cannot, but would not, help us, thou wilt. They have not the pity thou hast. We are so degenerate and corrupt that Abraham and Israel would not own us for their children, yet we fly to thee as our Father. Abraham cast out his son Ishmael; Jacob disinherited his son Reuben and cursed Simeon and Levi; but our heavenly Father, in pardoning sin, is God, and not man," Hos. xi. 9. 3. They pleaded God's interest in them, that he was their Lord, their owner and proprietor: "We are thy servants; what service we can do thou art entitled to, and therefore we ought not to serve strange kings and strange gods: Return for thy servants' sake." As a father finds himself obliged by natural affection to relieve and protect his child, so a master thinks himself obliged in honour to rescue and protect his servant: "We are thine by the strongest engagements, as well as the highest endearments. Thou hast borne rule over us; therefore, Lord, assert thy own interest, maintain thy own right; for we are called by thy name, and therefore whither shall we go but to thee, to be righted and protected? We are thine, save us (Ps. cxix. 94), thy own, acknowledge us. We are the tribes of thy inheritance, not only thy servants, but thy tenants; we are thine, not only to do work for thee, but to pay rent to thee. The tribes of Israel are God's inheritance, whence issue the little praise and worship that he receives from this lower world; and wilt thou suffer thy own servants and tenants to be thus abused?" 4. They pleaded that they had had but a short enjoyment of the land of promise and the privileges of the sanctuary (v. 18): The people of thy holiness have possessed it but a little while. From Abraham to David were but fourteen generations, and from David to the captivity but fourteen more (Matt. i. 17), and that was but a little while in comparison with what might have been expected from the promise of the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession (Gen. xvii. 8) and from the power that was put forth to bring them into that land and settle them in it. "Though we are the people of thy holiness, distinguished from other people and consecrated to thee, yet we are soon dislodged." But this they might thank themselves for; they were, in profession, the people of God's holiness, but it was their wickedness that turned them out of the possession of that land. 5. They pleaded that those who had and kept possession of their land were such as were strangers to God, such as he had no service or honour from: "Thou never didst bear rule over them, nor did they ever yield thee any obedience; they were not called by thy name, but professed relation to other gods and were the worshippers of them. Will God suffer those that do not stand in any relation to him to trample upon those that do?" Some give another reading of this: "We have become as those over whom thou didst never bear rule and who were never called by thy name; we are rejected and abandoned, despised and trampled upon, as if we never had been in thy service nor had thy name called upon us." Thus the shield of Saul was vilely cast away, as though he had not been anointed with oil. But the covenant that seems to be forgotten shall be remembered again.

CHAP. LXIII.

Ver. 1. WHo is this that cometh from Edom] It had been ſaid, chap. 62.11. Behold thy ſalvation (thy Saviour) cometh. Here therefore by an elegant Hypotypoſis, the Sionidae or Saints are brought in wondring at his coming in ſuch a garb, and asking Who's this? what gallant Conquerour have we here? Edom or Idumaea ſignifieth Red, Bozrah (the chief City of Idumaea) a vintage; confer ver. 2. It may very well be alſo, that this Prophecy was uttered in vintage-time, and therehence haply might grow the compariſon here uſed. John the Divine, repreſenting to us Chriſts coming to Judgement, uſeth the ſame Simile, Rev. 19.13. Some alſo of good note do underſtand this Prophecy of Chriſts triumphing over all his and our enemies (the Romiſh Edomites eſpecially) at the laſt day.

Metaph. à maſſa conſperſa. With dyed garments] Heb. leavened, i. e. drenched, beſmeared.

This that is glorious in his apparel] Which is the more glorious, becauſe laced or embroidered with the blood of his enemies.

Walking in the greatneſſe of his ſtrength] Fortiter graſſans, walking and stalking, going in ſtate, Plutarch. in Epam. greſſu grallatorio, Emperour like, ſo as Epaminondas marched before his army; which when Ageſilaus King of Spartans beheld, he cryed out, O virum magnificum! O that's a gallant man! Ye ſhall ſee the Son of man coming with great power, ſaith Chriſt.

I that ſpeak in righteouſneſſe] Chriſts anſwer, q. d. Fear not little flock: this ſtrange garb and gate of mine portendeth no hurt but good to you, to whom whatſoever I have faithfully promiſed, I will powerfully perform. As King of Zion I will Parcere ſubjectis & debellare ſuperbos. At the laſt day alſo I will come to be glorified in my Saints, and to be admired in all them that beleeve, 2 Theſ. 1.10. See Rev. 19.11.

Mighty to ſave] Sufficiens ad ſalvandum, ſive Magister ad ſalvandum, a Maſter to ſave. This thoſe Lepers had learned, and therefore cryed, Jeſus Maſter, have mercy on us, Luk. 17.13.

Ver. 2. Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel?] The wondring Church had propoſed two queſtions, ver. 1. viz. who that was? and why ſo bloodyed? To the firſt ſhe had an anſwer in few,Aug. but very full, ver. 1. To the ſecond ſhe here again preſſeth for an anſwer: and the rather becauſe candor magis quam cruor, clemency would better he ſeem a Saviour, than cruelty.

Ver. 3. I have troden the wine-preſſe alone] I the Sole and All ſufficient Saviour of my Church have executed Gods juſt vengeance upon all her enemies, ſpiritual and corporal: (confer Lam. 1.15. Rev. 14.19, 20. and 19.15.) and this with as much eaſe as men tread grapes in a wine-preſs.

And of the people there was none with me] Chriſt maketh uſe of men for the beating down of Satans ſtrong-holds: but the power whereby it is done, is from Chriſt alone, 2 Cor. 10.4, 5. and 4.7. Papiſts who will needs ſhare with Chriſt and make him but an half-Saviour, have no ſhare in his ſalvation.

For I will tread them in mine anger] I have already done it: and I will much more at that great day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, Rom. 2.5. See Rev. 19.20, 21.

And their blood ſhall be sprinkled] Or, was ſprinkled. Their blood, not his own. The Fathers therefore and others who interpret this text of Chriſts paſſion, were miſtaken. There is one among the reſt who thus deſcants upon this verſe, but not ſo well. The wild bull ſaith he, of all things cannot abide any red colour. Therefore the Hunter for the nonce ſtanding before a tree, puts on a red garment: whom when the Bull ſeeth, he runs hard at him as hard as he can drive: But the hunter ſlipping aſide, the bulls horns ſtick faſt in the tree: as when David ſlipt aſide, Sauls ſpear ſtuck faſt into the wall: ſuch an hunter is Chriſt. Chriſt ſtanding before the tree of his Croſſe, putteth on a red garment dipt and dyed in his own blood, as one that cometh with red garments from Bozrah: therefore the devil and his Angels, like wild bulls of Baſan run at him: but he ſaving himſelf, their hornes ſtick faſt in the Croſs; as Abrahams ram by his horns ſtuck faſt in the briars. Thus he.

Stain my raiment] Heb. pollute it: for other blood polluteth, Chap. 59.3. Lam. 4.14. but the blood of Jeſus Chriſt cleanſeth us from all ſin, 1 Joh. 1.7.

Ver. 4. For the day of vengeance is in mine heart] Or, was in mine heart: hence I made ſuch havock. Chriſt is the Lord God of Recompences, Jer. 51.56. and the Lord God of revenges, Pſal. 94.1. he is jealous and furious, Nah. 1.2. (See the Note there) his feet wherewith he treadeth down his enemies, are like unto fine braſs as if they burned in a furnace, Rev. 1.15. Oh it is a fearful thing to fall into the puniſhing hands of this living God, Heb. 10.31.

And the year of my Redeemed is come] Their joyful Jubilee. It is hail with the Saints when ill with the wicked. The deliverance of thoſe is oft the deſtruction of theſe.

Ver. 5. And I looked and there was none to help] See on chap. 59.16.

Ver. 6. Make them drunk in my fury] I will give them large draughts of my diſpleaſure, as Pſal. 75.9. I will infatuate and utterly diſable them to rebel and reſiſt: yea I will make them drunk with their own blood, as with new wine, chap. 49.26. See Rev. 16.6. with the Note. The perverſe Jews, as the laſt deſtruction of their Citie, became a famous inſtance, being buried as it were in a bog of blood.

And I will bring down their ſtrength] Or, their blood, as it is rendred,Oecolam. ver. 3. eo quod vita & virtus hominis in ſanguine, becauſe life and ſtrength is in the blood.

Ver. 7. I will mention the loving kindneſſes of the Lord] ſc. As an aggravation of Iſraels great unkindneſs and unthankfulneſs to ſo liberal a Lord,Summam Cantici ſui paucis complectitur. ſo bountiful a Benefactour. Good turnes exaggerate unkindneſſes: and mens offences are increaſed by their obligations. See Deut. 32.7, 14.

According to his mercies, &c.] Which are ſuch, as words are too weak to utter: hence this Copia verborum, and all too little: See the like, Epheſ. 2.5, 7.

Ver. 8. For he ſaid, Surely they are my people, children that will not lye] q. d. I preſume they will not, it were a foul ſhame for them if they ſhould deceive my expectation, deale diſloyally, ſhew themſelves deceitful in the Covenant. The Officers of Merindol in France anſwered the Popiſh Biſhop that moved them to abjure, that they marvelled much that he would offer to perſwade them to lye to God and the world. And albeit that all men by nature are lyars, yet they had learned by the Word of God, that they ought diligently to take heed of lying in any matter, be it never ſo ſmall; Alſo that they ought diligently to take heed that their children did not accuſtome or uſe themſelves to lye, and therefore puniſh them very ſharply when they took them with any lye,Act. & Mon. 866. even as if they had committed a robbery; for the devil is a lyar, &c. Here the Biſhop roſe up in a great anger, and ſo departed.

Ver. 9. In all their afflictions he was afflicted] See Exod. 3.7, 9. Judg. 10.16. Zach. 2.8. Act. 9.4. Jer. 31.20. Of God we may better ſay, than the Poet did of Auguſtus, 2. de Ponto. Eleg. 2.Eſt placidus, faciliſque parens, veniaeque paratus: Et qui fulmineo ſaepe ſine igne tonat. Qui cum triſte aliquid ſtatuit, ſit triſtis & ipſe: Cuique fere poenam ſumere poena ſua eſt.

And the Angel of his preſence ſaved them] i. e. Jeſus Chriſt, who is called the face of God, Exod. 33.14, 15. the image of the inviſible God, Coloſ. 1.15. whom who ſo hath ſeen, hath ſeen the Father alſo, Joh. 14.9. He who is in the boſom of the Father, Joh. 1.18. and as an everlaſting Prieſt mediateth and miniſtreth in the preſence of his Father, making requeſt for us, Heb. 9.24. Rev. 8.3. that Angel of the Covenant, Mal. 3.1.

And he bare them] As Parents do their young children.

And carryed them] As Eagles do their young. See Exod. 19.4. Deut. 32.11. with the Note.

Ver. 10. But they rebelled and vexed his holy Spirit] By ſinning againſt light, checks of conſcience, motions of the Spirit, mercyes without meaſure, &c. Junius thinketh this a clear place for proof of the Trinity in Unity.

So he was turned to be their enemy] This was an ill turn for them: abuſed mercy turneth into fury: with the froward God will wreſtle, Pſal. 18.

Ver. 11. Thou he remembred] i. e. Iſrael remembred the dayes of old, Heb. of antiquity, the dayes of yore, as ſome old Tranſlations have it. See Pſal. 89.50, &c.

Saying, Where is he that brought them up out of the ſea?] q. d. How is it that he is not now to be found, as then he was for the ſuccour of his poor people? They had vexed his holy Spirit, and therefore he withdrew himſelf. See Hoſ. 5.6.

With the ſhepherd of his flock] Or ſhepherds (as ſome ancient copies had it) viz. Moſes and Aaron, Pſal. 77.20.

Where is he that put his holy ſpirit within him?] But this holy Spirit they had vexed, ver. 10. and now they ſorrowfully enquire after. Delicata res eſt ſpiritus ſanctus: ita nos tractat, ſicut tractatur, ſaith a Father, i. e. The Spirit of God is a delicate thing: he deals with us, as we deal by him.

Ver. 12. That led them by the right hand of Moſes with his glorious arm] Or, that ma[illegible: 1 letter]e his gallant arm to go at Moſes his right hand.

Fun[illegible: 1 letter]cius. Dividing the water before them] So that Pſeudo-Moſes (the devill likely) made many over credulous Jews of Creet believe, that he would do for them whom he cozened into the midſt of the ſea, to their deſtruction, Anno Chriſti 434. Some are of opinion, that this affectionate prayer was purpoſely penned by the Prophet, for the uſe of thoſe poor Jews, who after the coming of Chriſt, and manifeſtation of the Goſpel, ſhould ſee themſelves to be rejected by God and his Church, and ſhould now beg to be owned again: cui ſanc inſtituto omnia, magis quam dici queat, conveniunt, ſaith Hyperius; the enſuing petitions ſuit very much.

Ver. 13. That led them through the deep] Which threatened to ſwallow them, but indeed preſerved them: ſo doth every main affliction.

As a horſe in the wilderneſſe] Or, as an horſe goeth in the plain, (when led by his rider) in qua non eſt lutum vel lapis, where there is neither mire to ſtick in, nor ſtone to ſtumble at. See Pſal. 106.

Leniter & commode.Ver. 14. As a beaſt goeth down into the valley] i. e. Gently and leiſurely, according to that known Diſtich, Aſcendente tuo, vel deſcendente caballo, Vox ait iſta, Fave; vox ait illa, Cave.

The Spirit of the Lord cauſed him to reſt] Or, led them until he brought them to reſt, ſc. in the promiſed land.

To make thy ſelf a glorious name] q. d. So thou maiſt do again, if thou pleaſe to ſhew mercy unto us: Name is here put for fame or renown.

Ver. 15. Look down from heaven] Affectus dolentium atque ardenter petentium ſcite exprimuntur: a pathetical and pithy prayer.

And behold from the habitation of thy holineſs, &c.] They pray otherwiſe now, then when the Temple ſtood, Pſal. 121.1. now they look higher: and Oh that they would do ſo! The modern Jews pray thus daily; but becauſe not from a right principle, they are not heard.

Where is thy zeal?] Thine ancient fervour, and forwardneſs in vindicating thy people, and being avenged of their enemies.

The ſounding (rumbling or yerning) of thy bowels, &c.] Sometimes God ſeemeth to looſe his mercy, and then we muſt find it for him, as here: ſometimes to ſleep or delay, and then we muſt waken quicken him, Pſal. 40.17. Iſa. 62.7.

Are they reſtrained?] Chryſoſtom exhorteth people, whether God grant or not, to pray ſtill; for when God denies, it is as good as if he grants: And if we pray for any temporal mercy, the very ability to pray, Hom. 30. in Gen ſ. is better then the thing we pray for; for Whoſoever calleth upon the name of the Lord, ſhall be ſaved.

Ver. 16. Doubtleſt thou art our Father] Though thou frowneſt and withdraweſt: The people of God ſaw that He was angry, that their hearts alſo were hard: yet they thought they ſhould know him amidſt all his auſterities, and they make to him for help. And, doubtleſs, help the Jews might yet have, could they ſeriouſly ſay as here, Certainly thou art our Father, and would no longer reſt upon carnal things, boaſting of Abraham their Father, Circumciſion, and other external priviledges.

Though Abram be ignorant of us] Ipſi nunc ſua quiete fruuntur, they are at reſt, and know nothing of our affaires. The Monks tell us that the Saints departed ſee things done here in the face of God, as in a glaſs. But this is a meer fiction of theirs: See Pſal. 27.10. 2 King. 22.20. Auguſtine ſaith of his mother Monica deceaſed,Lib de curae pro mortuis agenda, cap. 13. Eccius in locis. that ſhe did now no longer yeeld him comfort, becauſe ſhe knew not what befel him. The greateſt Popiſh Clerkes themſelves confeſs, that the invocation of Saints departed hath neither precept, promiſe, nor precedent in the Book of God. Moreover they cannot determine how the Saints know our hearts and prayers; whether by hearing, or ſeeing, or preſence everywhere, or by Gods relating, or revealing mens prayers and needs unto them. All which wayes ſome of them hold as poſſible, or probable: and others deny and confute them as untrue.Mortons Appeale lib. 2. cap. 12. ſect. 5. The Syriack and Arabick render the text thus, Thou art our Father, we are ignorant of Abraham, and we acknowledge not Iſrael. Thou O Lord art our Father, &c. Agreeable whereunto is that of the Heathen, Contemno minutos iſtos Deos, moao Jovem mihi propitium habeam, I care not for thoſe petty-gods, ſo that Jupiter will ſtand my friend. And that better ſaying of a devout Chriſtian, Ʋna eſt in trepida mihi re medicina, Jehova Cor patrium, os ver ax, omnipotenſque manus.Nathan. Chytraeus.

It hath been well obſerved, that the defeat given to the Spaniſh Fleet Anno 1588. fell out to be on St. James his day, whom the Spaniards pray to as their Patrone, or St. Tutelar.

Thy name is from eternity] i. e. This name of thine our Redeemer. Some read the text thus, Our Redeemer is from of old thy Name. Our Redemption was not of yeſterday, but verily fore ordained before the foundation of the world, 1 Pet. 1.20.

Ver. 17. O Lord, why haſt thou made us to erre from thy waies? &c.] i. e. Given us up to errour and obſtinacy? Why doſt thou thus puniſh ſin with ſin, for the illuſtration of thy Juſtice and jealouſy againſt us, who have rebelled and vexed thine holy Spirit? ver. 10. Oh be pleaſed to deal with us rather according to thy mercy, Return for thy ſervants ſake, the good people that are yet left amongſt us: give us hearts of fleſh, and lead us in the way everlaſting. Here obſerve that Gods beſt children may find in themſelves hardneſs of heart, Hoſ. 4.16. yet not total, but mixt with ſoftneſs and tenderneſs in every part, ſo that though they reſiſt, neglect, profit not as they might do (through pride, worldlineſs, voluptuouſneſs, Mat, 13.22. Luke 21.34. hypocritical hiding of any ſin, Pſal. 32.3, 4. Prov. 28.14. letting fall the watch of the Lord, 2 Chron. 32.25.) yet it is not done with full conſent, but with reluctance now, and repentance afterwards.

The tribes of thine inheritance] q. d. Wilt thou abhor thy people in covenant with thee, and abandon thine own inheritance? How few are there that thus urge the ſeale, and enter a ſuit with the Lord?

Ver. 18. The people of thine holineſs have poſſeſſed it but a little while] viz. In reſpect of that perpetuity promiſed them by Thee, Gen. 17.8. & 26.3. & 28.13. Exod. 32.13. Beſides the many calamities that have befaln us whereby we have had ſmall enjoyment of this thine inheritance. All the daies of the afflicted are evil, Prov. 15.15. their life lifeleſs, and not to be reckoned on.

Our adverſaries have trodden down thy Sanctuary] This they did in the daies of Antiochus, but eſpecially about the time of our Saviours incarnation: when the ſcepter departed from Judah, Pompey with his Army entered into the Sanctuary, Herod got the governement, the Romans ſat up their Enſignes and Statues in the holy of holies, &c. This deſolation of the ſecond Temple the Jews do here bewail: but we have cauſe to rejoyce, for that by Chriſt the whole world is now become a Temple, and every place a goodly Oratory, 1 Tim. 2.8.

Ver. 19. We are thine] And ſhouldeſt thou then deal with us as ſome profane idolatrous Nation? See here the holy boldneſs of Faith, ſtanding upon interrogatories, 1 Pet. 3.21. and filling her mouth with arguments of all ſorts.

Thou never bareſt rule over them] No ſuch reaſon or relation is there of children, ſervants, ſubjects, wherefore they ſhould thus be favoured, and we diſowned, Amos 3.2. See on ver. 17.