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Matthew Henry |
I S A I A H.
CHAP. LXII.
The business of prophets was both to preach and pray. In this chapter,
I. The prophet determines to apply closely and constantly to this
business,
II. God appoints him and others of his prophets to continue to do so,
for the encouragement of his people during the delays of their
deliverance,
III. The promises are here repeated and ratified of the great things
God would do for his church, for the Jews after their return out of
captivity and for the Christian church when it shall be set up in the
world.
1. The church shall be made honourable in the eyes of the world,
2. It shall appear to be very dear to God, precious and honourable in
his sight,
3. It shall enjoy great plenty,
4. It shall be released out of captivity and grow up again into a
considerable nation, particularly owned and favoured by heaven,
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1 For Zion’s sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem’s
sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as
brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth.
2 And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings
thy glory: and thou shalt be called by a new name, which the
mouth of the LORD shall name.
3 Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the LORD,
and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God.
4 Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land
any more be termed Desolate: but thou shalt be called Hephzi-bah,
and thy land Beulah: for the LORD delighteth in thee, and thy
land shall be married.
5 For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons
marry thee: and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride,
so shall thy God rejoice over thee.
The prophet here tells us,
I. What he will do for the church. A prophet, as he is a seer, so he is
a spokesman. This prophet resolves to perform that office faithfully,
v. 1.
He will not hold his peace; he will not rest; he will
mind his business, will take pains, and never desire to take his ease;
and herein he was a type of Christ, who was indefatigable in executing
the office of a prophet and made it his meat and drink till he had
finished his work. Observe here,
1. What the prophet’s resolution is: He will not hold his peace.
He will continue instant in preaching, will not only faithfully
deliver, but frequently repeat, the messages he has received from
the Lord. If people receive not the precepts and promises at first,
he will inculcate them and give them line upon line. And he will
continue instant in prayer; he will never hold his peace at the throne
of grace till he has prevailed with God for the mercies promised; he
will give himself to prayer and to the ministry of the word, as
Christ’s ministers must
(Acts vi. 4),
who must labour frequently in both and never be weary of this
well-doing. The business of ministers is to speak from God to his
people and to God for his people; and in neither of these must they be
silent.
2. What is the principle of this resolution–for Zion’s sake, and
for Jerusalem’s, not for the sake of any private interest of his
own, but for the church’s sake, because he has an affection and concern
for Zion, and it lies near his heart. Whatever becomes of his own house
and family, he desires to see the good of Jerusalem and resolves
to seek it all the days of his life,
It is God’s Zion and his Jerusalem, and it is therefore dear to
him, because it is so to God and because God’s glory is interested in
its prosperity.
3. How long he resolves to continue this importunity–till the promise
of the church’s righteousness and salvation, given in the foregoing
chapter, be accomplished. Isaiah will not himself live to see the
release of the captives out of Babylon, much less the bringing in of
the gospel, in which grace reigns through righteousness unto
life and salvation; yet he will not hold his peace till
these be accomplished, even the utmost of them, because his prophecies
will continue speaking of these things, and there shall in every age be
a remnant that shall continue to pray for them, as successors to him,
till the promises be performed, and so the prayers answered that were
grounded upon them. Then the church’s righteousness and
salvation will go forth as brightness, and as a lamp
that burns, so plainly that it will carry its own evidence along
with it. It will bring honour and comfort to the church, which will
hereupon both look pleasant and appear illustrious; and it will bring
instruction and direction to the world, a light not only to the eyes
but to the feet, and to the paths of those who before sat in
darkness and in the shadow of death.
II. What God will do for the church. The prophet can but pray and
preach, but God will confirm the word and answer the prayers.
1. The church shall be greatly admired. When that righteousness which
is her salvation, her praise, and her glory, shall be brought
forth, the Gentiles shall see it. The tidings of it shall be
carried to the Gentiles, and a tender of it made to them; they may so
see this righteousness as to share in it if it be not their own fault.
“Even kings shall see and be in love with the glory of thy
righteousness”
(v. 2),
shall overlook the glory of their own courts and kingdoms, and look at,
and look after, the spiritual glory of the church as that which excels.
2. She shall be truly admirable. Great names make men considerable in
the world, and great respect is paid them thereupon; now it is agreed
that honor est in honorante–honour derives its value from the
dignity of him who confers it. God is the fountain of honour and
from him the church’s honour comes: “Thou shalt be called by a new
name, a pleasant name, such as thou wast never called by before,
no, not in the day of thy greatest prosperity, and the reverse of that
which thou wast called by in the day of thy affliction; thou shalt have
a new character, be advanced to a new dignity, and those about thee
shall have new thoughts of thee.” This seems to be alluded to in that
promise
of the white stone and in the stone a new name, and that
of the name of the city of my God and my new name. It is
a name which the mouth of the Lord shall name, who, we are sure,
miscalls nothing, and who will oblige others to call her by the name he
has given her; for his judgment is according to truth and all shall
concur with it sooner or later. Two names God shall give her:–
(1.) He shall call her his crown
(v. 3):
Thou shalt be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, not on
his head (as adding any real honour or power to him, as crowns do to
those that are crowned with them), but in his hand. He is pleased to
account them, and show them forth, as a glory and beauty to him. When
he took them to be his people it was that they might be unto him for
a name, and for a praise, and for a glory
“Thou shalt be a crown of glory and a royal diadem,
through the hand, the good hand, of thy God upon thee; he shall make
thee so, for he shall be to thee a crown of glory,
ch. xxviii. 5.
Thou shalt be so in his hand, that is, under his protection; he
that shall put glory upon thee shall create a defence upon all that
glory, so that the flowers of thy crown shall never wither nor
shall its jewels be lost.”
(2.) He shall call her his spouse,
This is a yet greater honour, especially considering what a forlorn
condition she had been in.
[1.] Her case had been very melancholy. She was called forsaken
and her land desolate during the captivity, like a woman
reproachfully divorced or left a disconsolate widow. Such as the state
of religion in the world before the preaching of the gospel–it was in
a manner forsaken and desolate, a thing that no man looked after nor
had any real concern for.
[2.] It should now be very pleasant, for God would return in mercy to
her. Instead of those two names of reproach, she shall be called by two
honourable names. First, She shall be called Hephzi-bah,
which signifies, My delight is in her; it was the name of
Hezekiah’s queen, Manasseh’s mother
a proper name for a wife, who ought to be her husband’s delight,
And here it is the church’s Maker that is her husband: The Lord
delights in thee. God by his grace has wrought that in his church
which makes her his delight, she being refined, and reformed, and
brought home to him; and then by his providence he does that for her
which makes it appear that she is his delight and that he delights to
do her good. Secondly, She shall be called Beulah, which
signifies married, whereas she had been desolate, a condition
opposed to that of the married wife,
ch. liv. 1.
“Thy land shall be married, that is, it shall become fruitful
again, and be replenished.” Though she has long been barren, she shall
again be peopled, shall again be made to keep house and to be a joyful
mother of children,
She shall be married, for,
1. Her sons shall heartily espouse the land of their nativity and its
interests, which they had for a long time neglected, as despairing ever
to have any comfortable enjoyment of it: Thy sons shall marry
thee, that is, they shall live with thee and take delight in thee.
When they were in Babylon, they seemed to have espoused that land, for
they were appointed to settle, and to seek the peace of it,
But now they shall again marry their own land, as a young man
marries a virgin that he takes great delight in, is extremely fond
of, and is likely to have many children by. It bodes well to a land
when its own natives and inhabitants are pleased with it, prefer it
before other lands, when its princes marry their country and resolve to
take their lot with it.
2. Her God (which is much better) shall betroth her to
himself in righteousness,
Hosea ii. 19, 20.
He will take pleasure in his church: As the bridegroom rejoices over
the bride, is pleased with his relation to her and her affection to
him, so shall thy God rejoice over thee: he shall rest in his
love to thee
he shall take pleasure in thee
and shall delight to do thee good with his whole heart and his whole
soul,
Jer. xxxii. 41.
This is very applicable to the love Christ has for his church and the
complacency he takes in it, which appears so brightly in Solomon’s
Song, and which will be complete in heaven.
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6 I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which
shall never hold their peace day nor night: ye that make mention
of the LORD, keep not silence,
7 And give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make
Jerusalem a praise in the earth.
8 The LORD hath sworn by his right hand, and by the arm of his
strength, Surely I will no more give thy corn to be meat for
thine enemies; and the sons of the stranger shall not drink thy
wine, for the which thou hast laboured:
9 But they that have gathered it shall eat it, and praise the
LORD; and they that have brought it together shall drink it in
the courts of my holiness.
Two things are here promised to Jerusalem:–
I. Plenty of the means of grace–abundance of good preaching and good
praying
(v. 6, 7),
and this shows the method God takes when he designs mercy for a people;
he first brings them to their duty and pours out a spirit of prayer
upon them, and then brings salvation to them. Provision is made,
1. That ministers may do their duty as watchmen. It is here spoken of
as a token for good, as a step towards further mercy and an earnest of
it, that, in order to what he designed for them, he would set
watchmen on their walls who should never hold their peace. Note,
(1.) Ministers are watchmen on the church’s walls, for it is as a city
besieged, whose concern it is to have sentinels on the walls, to take
notice and give notice of the motions of the enemy. It is necessary
that, as watchmen, they be wakeful, and faithful, and willing to endure
hardness.
(2.) They are concerned to stand upon their guard day and night; they
must never be off their watch as long as those for whose souls they
watch are not out of danger.
(3.) They must never hold their peace; they must take all opportunities
to give warning to sinners, in season, out of season, and must never
betray the cause of Christ by a treacherous or cowardly silence. They
must never hold their peace at the throne of grace; they must pray,
and not faint, as Moses lifted up his hands and kept them steady,
till Israel had obtained the victory over Amalek,
2. That people may do their duty. As those that make mention of the
Lord, let not them keep silence neither, let not them think it enough
that their watchmen pray for them, but let them pray for themselves;
all will be little enough to meet the approaching mercy with due
solemnity. Note,
(1.) It is the character of God’s professing people that they make
mention of the Lord, and continue to do so even in bad times, when the
land is termed forsaken and desolate. They are the
Lord’s remembrancers (so the margin reads it); they remember the
Lord themselves and put one another in mind of him.
(2.) God’s professing people must be a praying people, must be
public-spirited in prayer, must wrestle with God in prayer, and
continue to do so: “Keep not silence; never grow remiss in the
duty nor weary of it.” Give him no rest–alluding to an
importunate beggar, to the widow that with her continual coming wearied
the judge into a compliance. God said to Moses, Let me alone
and Jacob to Christ, I will not let thee go except thou bless
me,
Gen. xxxii. 26.
(3.) God is so far from being displeased with our pressing importunity,
as men commonly are, that he invites and encourages it; he bids us to
cry after him; he is not like those disciples who discouraged a
petitioner,
He bids us make pressing applications at the throne of grace, and
give him no rest,
Luke xi. 5, 8.
He suffers himself not only to be reasoned with, but to be wrestled
with.
(4.) The public welfare or prosperity of God’s Jerusalem is that which
we should be most importunate for at the throne of grace; we should
pray for the good of the church.
[1.] That it may be safe, that he would establish it, that the
interests of the church may be firm, may be settled for the present and
secured to posterity.
[2.] That it may be great, may be a praise in the earth, that it
may be praised, and God may be praised for it. When gospel truths are
cleared and vindicated, when gospel ordinances are duly administered in
their purity and power, when the church becomes eminent for holiness
and love, then Jerusalem is a praise in the earth, then it is in
reputation.
(5.) We must persevere in our prayers for mercy to the church till the
mercy come; we must do as the prophet’s servant did, go yet seven
times, till the promising cloud appear,
(6.) It is a good sign that God is coming towards a people in ways of
mercy when he pours out a spirit of prayer upon them and stirs them up
to be fervent and constant in their intercessions.
II. Plenty of all other good things,
v. 8.
This follows upon the former; when the people praise God, when all
the people praise him, then shall the earth yield her increase
and outward prosperity, crowning its piety, shall help to make
Jerusalem a praise in the earth. Observe,
1. The great distress they had been in, and the losses they had
sustained. Their corn had been meat for their enemies, which they hoped
would be meat for themselves and their families. Here was a double
grievance, that they themselves wanted that which was necessary to the
support of life and were in danger of perishing for want of it, and
that their enemies were strengthened by it, had their camp victualled
with it, and so were the better able to do them a mischief. God is said
to give their corn to their enemies, because he not only permitted it,
but ordered it, to be the just punishment both of their abuse of plenty
and of their symbolizing with strangers,
The wine which they had laboured for, and which in their affliction
they needed for the relief of those among them that were of a heavy
heart, strangers drank it, to gratify their lusts with; this sore
judgment was threatened for their sins,
Lev. xxvi. 16; Deut. xxviii. 33.
See how uncertain our creature-comforts are, and how much it is our
wisdom to labour for that meat which we can never be robbed of.
2. The great fulness and satisfaction they should now be restored to
(v. 9):
Those that have gathered it shall eat it, and praise the Lord.
See here,
(1.) God’s mercy in giving plenty, and peace to enjoy it,–that the
earth yields her increase, that there are hands to be employed in
gathering it in, and that they are not taken off by plague and
sickness, or otherwise employed in war,–that strangers and enemies do
not come and gather it for themselves, or take it from us when we have
gathered it,–that we eat the labour of our hands and the bread is not
eaten out of our mouths,–and especially that we have opportunity and a
heart to honour God with it, and that his courts are open to us and we
are not restrained from attending on him in them.
(2.) Our duty in the enjoyment of this mercy. We must gather what God
gives, with care and industry; we must eat it freely and cheerfully,
not bury the gifts of God’s bounty, but make use of them. We must, when
we have eaten and are full, bless the Lord, and give him thanks
for his bounty to us; and we must serve him with our abundance, use it
in works of piety and charity, eat it and drink it in the courts of
his holiness, where the altar, the priest, and the poor must all
have their share. The greatest comfort that a good man has in his meat
and drink is that it furnishes him with a meat-offering and a
drink-offering for the Lord his God
(Joel ii. 14);
the greatest comfort that he has in an estate is that it gives him an
opportunity of honouring God and doing good. This wine is to be
drunk in the courts of God’s holiness, and therefore moderately
and with sobriety, as before the Lord.
3. The solemn ratification of this promise: The Lord has sworn by
his right hand, and by the arm of his strength, that he will do
this for his people. God confirms it by an oath, that his people, who
trust in him and his word, may have strong consolation,
Heb. vi. 17, 18.
And, since he can swear by no greater, he swears by himself, sometimes
by his being (As I live,
Ezek. xxxiii. 11),
sometimes by his holiness
here by his power, his right hand (which was lifted up in swearing,
and his arm of power; for it is a great satisfaction to those who build
their hopes on God’s promise to be sure that what he has promised he
is able to perform,
Rom. iv. 21.
To assure us of this he has sworn by his strength, pawning the
reputation of his omnipotence upon it; if he do not do it, let it be
said, It was because he could not, which the Egyptians shall
never say
nor any other. It is the comfort of God’s people that his power is
engaged for them, his right hand, where the Mediator sits.
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10 Go through, go through the gates; prepare ye the way of the
people; cast up, cast up the highway; gather out the stones; lift
up a standard for the people.
11 Behold, the LORD hath proclaimed unto the end of the world,
Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh;
behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him.
12 And they shall call them, The holy people, The redeemed of
the LORD: and thou shalt be called, Sought out, A city not
forsaken.
This, as many like passages before, refers to the deliverance of the
Jews out of Babylon, and, under the type and figure of that, to the
great redemption wrought out by Jesus Christ, and the proclaiming of
gospel grace and liberty through him.
1. Way shall be made for this salvation; all difficulties shall be
removed, and whatever might obstruct it shall be taken out of the way,
The gates of Babylon shall be thrown open, that they may with freedom
go through them; the way from Babylon to the land of Israel shall be
prepared; causeways shall be made and cast up through wet and miry
places, and the stones gathered out from places rough and rocky; in the
convenient places appointed for their rendezvous standards shall be set
up for their direction and encouragement, that they may embody for
their greater safety. Thus John Baptist was sent to prepare the way
of the Lord,
Matt. iii. 3.
And, before Christ by his graces and comforts comes to any for
salvation, preparation is made for him by repentance, which is called
the preparation of the gospel of peace,
Eph. vi. 15.
Here the way is levelled by it, there the feet are shod with it, which
comes all to one, for both are in order to a journey.
2. Notice shall be given of this salvation,
It shall be proclaimed to the captives that they are set at liberty and
may go if they please; it shall be proclaimed to their neighbours, to
all about them, to the end of the world, that God has pleaded
Zion’s just, injured, and despised cause. Let is be said to Zion, for
her comfort, Behold, thy salvation comes (that is, thy Saviour,
who brings salvation); he will bring such a work, such a reward, in
this salvation, as shall be admired by all, a reward of comfort and
peace with him; but a work of humiliation and reformation before him,
to prepare his people for that recompence of their sufferings; and
then, with reference to each, it follows, they shall be called, The
holy people, and the redeemed of the Lord. The work before
him, which shall be wrought in them and upon them, shall denominate
them a holy people, cured of their inclination to idolatry and
consecrated to God only; and the reward with him, the
deliverance wrought for them, shall denominate them the redeemed of
the Lord, so redeemed as none but God could redeem them, and
redeemed to be his, their bonds loosed, that they might be his
servants. Jerusalem shall then be called, Sought out, a city not
forsaken. She had been forsaken for many years; there were neither
traders nor worshippers that enquired the way to Jerusalem as formerly,
when it was frequented by both. But now God will again make her
considerable. She shall be sought out, visited, resorted to, and court
made to her, as much as ever. When Jerusalem is called a holy
city, then it is called sought out; for holiness puts an
honour and beauty upon any place or person, which draws respect, and
makes them to be admired, beloved, and enquired after. But this being
proclaimed to the end of the world must have a reference to the gospel
of Christ, which was to be preached to every creature; and it
intimates,
(1.) The glory of Christ. It is published immediately to the church,
but is thence echoed to every nation: Behold, thy salvation
cometh. Christ is not only the Saviour, but the salvation itself;
for the happiness of believers is not only from him, but in him,
His salvation consists both in the work and in the reward which he
brings with him; for those that are his shall neither be idle nor lose
their labour.
(2.) The beauty of the church. Christians shall be called saints
(1 Cor. i. 2),
the holy people, for they are chosen and called to salvation
through sanctification. They shall be called the redeemed of the
Lord; to him they owe their liberty, and therefore to him they owe
their service, and they shall not be ashamed to own both. None are to
be called the redeemed of the Lord but those that are the
holy people; the people of God’s purchase are a holy nation. And
they shall be called, Sought out. God shall seek them out, and
find them, wherever they are dispersed, eclipsed, or lost in a crowd;
men shall seek them out, that they may join themselves to them, and not
forsake them. It is good to associate with the holy people, that
we may learn their ways, and with the redeemed of the Lord, that
we may share in the blessings of the redemption.
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