Dear Friends,
Today’s devotional consists of study notes for the adult Sunday school class I am teaching on Isaiah for my church. The passage is a very rich one. Read the Bible and look at the notes – back and forth – to enter into the richness. God bless you.
Because of Calvary,
John Janney

Adult SS Elective: Isaiah 54:1-57:22

6. His Program (54:1-17)

“After having spoken of the death of Christ, he passes on with good reason to the Church; that we may feel more deeply in ourselves what is the value and efficacy of his death.” [John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries VIII (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, n.d.), p. 133]

“This chapter’s exuberance, peace and security spring from the dereliction and death just described, which at 52:13 cut across the description of the great homecoming. In Christian terms, the Calvary of ch. 53 is followed by the growing church of ch. 54 and the gospel call of ch. 55.” [Kidner, p. 663-664]

“Response is the keynote of chapters 54-55. Many divine acts are spoken of but the only human acts envisaged are responses: to sing (54:1), to enlarge the tent (54:2), to come to the banquet (55:1), to seek the Lord (55:6)… In his saving work, the Servant has done everything, removing sin, establishing in righteousness, creating a family. The way is therefore open for response, pure and simple: to sing over what someone else has accomplished (54:1); to enjoy a feast for which someone else has paid (55:1)…. Chapter 54 speaks of the enlarging of the tents and chapter 55 tells who is going to be there.” [Motyer, p. 443-444]

“‘Zion, the restored Bride of Jehovah.’ The chapter is divided into sections: vss. 1-10. The bride comforted and promised a numerous offspring and lasting happiness; vss. 11-17. Zion, the city restored and filled with a happy and invincible people.” [Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 330]

1. Joy (54:1)

“The contrast here is between one who has no chance of having children (being deprived of a husband’s care and support)…and one naturally placed to be fruitful (who has a husband). Thus, the gathering family cannot be explained naturally as a fact (she is barren, she never bore a child, was never in labor and is desolate) and is more than can be explained naturally in extent (her children are more than of her who has a husband). The church, the Lord’s people, are created by supernatural birth.” [Motyer, p. 445]

1. Expansion (54:2-3)

“The picture is that of the normative state of the community of the redeemed, the people of God, the church. They have been brought into being by supernatural birth (1), designed for growth (2-3) and are secure in the loving care of the Lord (4-5).” [Motyer, p. 445]

“With lengthen and strengthen equal attention is given to enlargement and solidity.” [Motyer, p. 445]

“As the family increases the tent is proportionally enlarged, and requires the cords to be longer, and the stakes to be stronger in proportion.” [Henderson in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 331]

“In Psalm 2:8 the Davidic king is promised the nations as his inheritance.” [Motyer, p. 446]

1. Confidence (54:4-5) Cf. Philippians 3:13-14

“The darkness of sorrow has often been shown to be the shadow of God’s wing as he drew near to bless.” [Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 331]

“The Lord has committed himself to us as husband in all his fullness of power, he is on our side as Redeemer in all the fullness of the divine nature (he is the Holy One). Every circumstance that befalls us is within the divine sovereignty of the God of all the earth.” [Motyer, p. 446-447]

1. Reconciliation (54:6-10)

“50:1-3 pictured a broken marriage relationship in which the alienated husband came and ‘called’ (50:2) his erring wife to be restored. Since she would not respond, it became part of the work of the Servant to ‘bring back’ Jacob (49:5-6). The Servant has now finished his work and restoration has been accomplished. The new situation is summed up as a covenant of peace (10), which refers back to the making of peace by the punishment which fell on the Servant (53:3).” [Motyer, p. 447]

“The wrath is little, but the mercies are great; the wrath is for a moment, but the kindness everlasting. See how one is set over against the other, that we may neither despond under our afflictions, nor despair of relief.” [Matthew Henry’s Commentary IV, p. 245]

“small moment, the 70 years of Babylonian captivity.” [Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 332]  Cf. II Peter 3:8

“The assurance of the preceding verse is now repeated in another form. There can no more be another such effusion of my wrath than there can be another deluge, here called the waters of Noah, just as we familiarly say ‘Noah’s flood.’ The security in this case, as in that, is a divine oath or solemn covenant, like that recorded Gen. viii.21, and ix.11” [Alexander II, p. 313]

“Throughout its history, the divine covenant has always been linked with sacrifice (Gn. 8:20ff.; 9:8ff.; 15:9-18; Ex. 24:4-8; Ps. 50:5). The link here between covenant and peace implies a peace resting on sacrifice ― the death of the Servant.” [Motyer, p. 449]

1. Righteousness (54:11-17)

“Isaiah’s book rests on the contrast between the city humankind builds without God, which ends in destruction, and the city of God in all its eternal glory.” [Motyer, p. 449]

“The narrow tent of v 2 and the shattered Jerusalem are equally outshone by the union of beauty and strength, a glowing picture of the church, to be elaborated in Rev. 21:20-27. …The righteousness of v 14 and the impregnability of vs 15-17 are deep rooted in personal discipleship (13; cf. Je. 31:34), which is one of the marks of the new covenant. This is the true strength of God’s city, which is promised not immunity from attack but the unanswerable weapon of truth (17; cf. Lk. 21:15).” [Kidner, p. 664]

“Taught by the Lord brings to the fore one of the core themes of this section: that the citizens of the city are like the Servant of the Lord… The citizens of the city are actually servants, sharing also the Servant’s title…. This is what the Servant has done; he has created a family (cf. 53:10). Those for whom he died are his sons, brought here into the ‘abundant’ enjoyment of the fruits of his death. Righteousness is the rock foundation on which the city is built….according to 53:11 the righteousness of the Servant.” [Motyer, p. 450-451]

”The ideal of the servant is to be reproduced in each citizen of this newly established kingdom.” [Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 333]

“weapon…tongue, the two ways in which enmity may be shown, by act and by word.” [Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 333]

“If God secures and defends it, we may be sure it is safe from all attacks.” [Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 333]

7. His Invitation (55:1-13)

“Now turn to the fifty-fifth chapter of this prophecy; might we not almost say, the fifty-fifth chapter of this gospel?” [Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XLII, (1896), p. 58]

“The call to the needy is unsurpassed for warmth of welcome even in the NT.” [Kidner, p. 664]

“The open proclamation of the Lord assures that whosoever will may come, including Gentiles.” [VanGemeren, p. 508]

“The Lord of glory does not say ‘come to the waters’ apart from the command, ‘let the wicked forsake his way’ (cf. Isaiah 55:1, 7).” [John F. MacArthur Jr., The Gospel According to Jesus, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1988), p. 56]

1. Needs met (55:1-5)

“The fourfold come is as wide as human need (note the stress on unsatisfied longing in vs 1-2, as in e.g. Ec. 1:3; Jn. 4:13) and as narrow as a single individual (note the intertwined singulars and plurals in v 1, more evident in AV, RV). The Bible closes with an echo of it (Rev. 22:17), and Jesus made the same identification of come…and eat with ‘come to me’ in Jn. 6:35.” [Kidner, p. 664]

“See, the way of salvation is through Ear-gate. We must hear the gospel, for it is not what we are to do, but what we are to receive that will save us; and we must come to God to hear it before we can receive it. ‘Faith cometh by hearing.’ Give a very earnest ear, then, to the preaching of the gospel of Christ: ‘Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.’ Again the Lord says, ‘Incline your ear, and come unto me.’” [Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XLIII, (1897), p. 443]

“It was by the ear, by our first parents listening to the serpent, that we lost paradise; and it is by the ear, by hearing of the Word, that we get to heaven. ‘Hear and your souls shall life.’ (Isaiah 55:3).” [Thomas Watson in The Golden Treasury of Puritan Quotations compiled by I. D. E. Thomas, (Chicago: Moody Press, 1975), p. 221]

“…Under these words, ‘waters, milk, wine, bread,’ Isaiah includes all that is necessary for spiritual life…” [Calvin’s Commentaries VIII, p. 156]

“Come, but wine and milk without money and without cost highlights the richness (not just water but wine and milk!) as well as the freeness of the commodity. Yet alongside this emphasis on freeness, the very buy is repeated. The thought of purchase is not set aside… There is a purchase and a price, though not theirs to pay…. This is another allusion to the work of the Servant…. His the price, ours the freeness!” [Motyer, p. 453]

“…Come…to the waters which flowed from that smitten Rock…” [Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XLIII, (1897), p. 443]

“…Note the invitation to come is addressed to those who have no money — not to those who don’t have enough.” [Jerry Bridges, Transforming Grace: Living Confidently in God’s Unfailing Love, (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1991), p. 27]

“Is there any one who can say before God who searches the heart, ‘I am satisfied, I have no sense of thirst, no nameless craving’? Are you satisfied? I do not mean, are you tolerably contented and comfortable on the whole and in a general way when things are at their best. But, satisfied! — the deep under-the-surface rest and complete satisfaction of the very heart, the filling of its emptiness, the stilling of all its cravings; and this not during the false frothing of excitement or business, but when you are alone, when you lie awake in the night, when you are shut away from any fictitious filling of your cup, and when the broken cisterns have leaked out, as they will, and do, and must — are you satisfied then? Verily, He who knew what was in man knew that He was not narrowing the invitation when He said, ‘Let him that is athirst, come!’” [F. R. Havergal, The Royal Invitation in The Speaker’s Bible V, p. 153]

“In the Lord Jesus Christ there is all you want, and more than you know that you want. As yet you only thirst, but here is bread for your hunger as well as drink for your thirst. Whereas ‘waters’ might seem to satisfy your thirst, here is a superfluity of grace, an exceeding abundance of mercy: ‘Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.’ Christ is as free as the air. As you have only to take in the air by breathing, in order to live by it, so have you only to receive Christ into your soul, and you live by him. As flows old Father Thames through the green meadows, and every dog may come and lap, and every ox may stand knee-deep in the stream, for there is none to keep even an animal away, so is it with Christ: ‘Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.’” [Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XLI, (1895, p. 201]

“God excludes none from the benefits of the gospel that will not exclude themselves; it is free to all.” [Thomas Boston, The Art of Manfishing: A Puritan’s view of Evangelism, (Ross-shire, Scotland: Christian Focus Publications Ltd., 1998), p. 39]

“What was metaphor, come to the waters (1) is now reality, come to me.” [Motyer, p. 453]

“‘Hearken’ (attention); ‘eat’ (appropriation); ‘delight’ (appreciation).” [William Henry Griffith Thomas, The Pentateuch, (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1957), p. 91]

“God’s mercies in Scripture are not called speedy mercies, but they are called sure mercies…” [Thomas Watson, The Mischief of Sin, p. 147]

“…The Servant and David are the same person.” [Motyer, p. 455]

“Behold I have given him. One greater than David, even the Beloved of the Lord, the Only-begotten, the Messiah Prince, the King of kings, even Jesus.” [Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XXXVIII, (1892), p. 503]

“The whole Gentile world is on the move to David. Verse 5a speaks of the extensiveness of the call, reaching beyond the known world; 5b of its effectiveness, overcoming ignorance and inducing eagerness.” [Motyer, p. 455]

“Christ must have a people. He did not die in vain. God will give him a following; he shall not be a Commander without troops; he shall not be a Leader without disciples.” [Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XLII, (1896), p. 59]

“…The invitations (1) and the commands to listen (2-3b) have been supported by guarantees. First, the promised blessings are pledged by covenant (3c). Secondly, they are secured by the person and rule of the perpetual world king (3d-4); and thirdly, the Lord promises that he will himself be the magnet drawing the nations into the covenanted Davidic blessings (cf. 2:2-4; 1 Ki. 8:41)…. The Servant is this David who is to come, through whose dying and living again the blessings of David’s rule, the ‘sure mercies’, will be available…. Wickedness, objectively considered, has been dealt with by the Servant’s death; wickedness, subjectively considered, calls for repentance.” [Motyer, p. 455-456]

1. Repentance required (55:6-7)

“If man is hungry and needs satisfying (1-5), he is also wicked and needs salvation. God’s calling and seeking (1-5) must be matched by those of the sinner. V 7 is a classic statement of repentance, challenging the mind…and the will, the habits (ways) and the plans (implied in the Hebrew for thoughts). It is both negative (forsake) and positive (turn), personal (to the LORD) and specific (for mercy); and its appeal is reinforced by the shortness of the time (6) and the sheer generosity of the promise (7).” [Kidner, p. 664]

“Dowsett catches the thrust of this verse exactly by saying ‘we come to the Lord as we are, but not to stay as we are’.” [Motyer, p. 456]

“The ‘wicked’ sins more openly in ‘his way:’ the ‘unrighteous’ refers to the more subtle workings of sin in the ‘thoughts.’ All are guilty in the latter respect, though many fancy themselves safe, because not openly (‘wicked in ways’…. The progress of the penitent is to be from negative reformation, ‘forsaking his (1.) way,’ and (2) a farther step, ‘his thoughts’ to positive repentance, (1.) ‘returning to the Lord’ (the only true repentance, Zech. xii.10), and making God his God… ‘Return’ implies that man originally walked with God, but has apostatized.” [Fausset, p. 736-737]

“There are only three kinds of persons; those who serve God, having found Him; others who are occupied in seeking Him, not having found Him; while the remainder live without seeking Him, and without having found Him. The first are reasonable and happy, the last are foolish and unhappy; those between are unhappy and reasonable.” [Pascal, Pensees, p. 75 #257]

“We seem to think that salvation is something that we are going to stumble upon by accident…. We act as if we thought it might be slipped into our pockets while we sleep or dropped into our coffins when we die.” [Clovis G. Chappell, Sermons on Bible Characters, (New York: Harper & Bros., 1922), p. 135]

“What a grand word that is! ‘He will abundantly pardon.’ However abundant sin may be, God’s pardon is still more abundant. As Paul puts it, ‘Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.’ Sin may be like the great mountains, but the mercy of God is like Noah’s flood, that rose above the tops of the highest hills: ‘He will abundantly pardon.’” [Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XLIV, (1898), p. 372]

1. Comfort given (55:8-11)
2. From God’s greatness (55:8-9)

“This and the following verses reply to those objections that the natural man opposes to the new way of salvation proposed by God, vss. 1-3. It may be objected as inconceivable that man can obtain salvation simply by believing, and not by his own works.” [Nagelsbach in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 336]

“There is a forceful adjective twice only used by St. Paul in his letters and in both cases translated ‘unsearchable.’ ‘How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past tracing out’; ‘the unsearchable riches of Christ.’ It may be applied to that which is so lofty or so deep that it cannot be exhaustively explored.” [The Speaker’s Bible V, p. 157]

“…We are all…inclined to subjectivism in our theology. God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, and the God-centered approach which the Bible makes to problems of life and thought is in the highest degree unnatural to the minds of sinful and self-centered men. It calls for a veritable Copernican revolution in our habits of thought, and is slowly and painfully learned. On the other hand, it is entirely natural for sinners to think of themselves as wise, not by reason of divine teaching, but through the independent exercise of their own judgment, and to try to justify their fancied wisdom by adjusting what the Bible teaches to what they have already imbibed from other sources (‘modern knowledge’). Professed re-statements of the faith in modern terms often prove to be revisions of the faith to make it square with popular intellectual fashions…. As usual with sinful habits of mind, we are largely unconscious of our lapses, and only become aware of them as we test ourselves by Scripture and ask God to search our minds and teach us to criticize our own thinking.” [J. I. Packer, ‘Fundamentalism’ and the Word of God, (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1957, p. 70]

“Oh, what a mercy it is to be taught to think God’s thoughts, and to be led in God’s ways! It is the entrance into a new life; it is something infinitely beyond the greatest elevation to which any ordinary life can ever reach by its own unaided power.” [Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XLIV, (1898), p. 372]

“Men every day measure the Christ by themselves. How much better if we measured ourselves by the Christ!” [Lew Wallace in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 340]

1. From God’s word (55:10-11)

“The parallel between the life agency of rain and the effective word is exact. Each has a heavenly origin and power of effectiveness and neither fails.” [Motyer, p. 457]

1. Transformation promised (55:12-13)

“His decree is given in these verses, combining the joys of liberation (12a), of the Lord’s own coming (cf. 12:a with 52:12’ 12b with Ps. 96:12-13) and the healing of the old devastations (cf. 13a with 7:23-25…). Notice his special renown as liberator (13b).” [Kidner, p. 664]

“They will be led forth by the Lord himself (42:16; 53:12)…. Creation is released in a newfound joy (12c-f) and enters into a new relationship with its Creator. The disappearance of thornbush and briers symbolizes the removal of the curse that followed sin (Gn. 3:17f.) It is ‘a transformation of nature that reverses the curse… “Paradise Regained”…’… The transformed people in a transformed world will be an everlasting sign, will ‘signify’ who and what the Lord is. When people respond to the Lord’s word calling them to seek, forsake and return (6-7), the effective power of that word (10-11) brings them into an experience of the love, forgiveness (7) and peace (12) of God and lifts them into membership in a new world of eternal duration. This is what the Servant accomplished.” [Motyer, p. 458]

“The conception of nature rejoicing in the redemption of the race is constant in O. T. and often repeated in Isaiah.” [Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 336]

8. His Expectation (56:1-8)

“It was God’s purpose that through Israel the Gentiles might come to know the true God and His salvation (Gen. 12:1-3). But instead, Israel adopted the false gods of the Gentiles! Their leaders were like blind watchmen, greedy watchdogs that could not bark, and shepherds concerned only for themselves (vv. 9-12)….

“But God did not abandon the Gentiles. The ‘outcast’ foreigner is accepted (vv. 6-8), and the eunuch is welcomed (vv. 3-5; Deut 23:1). In Jesus Christ, the wall between Jews and Gentiles is broken down; and any sinner can come to the Savior and find forgiveness and acceptance (Eph. 2).

“Jesus quoted from verse 7 when He cleansed the temple in Jerusalem (Matt. 21:13). How tragic that the religious leaders had turned a place of worship and witness into a den of thieves. Would any Gentile want to know the God of Israel after seeing the Court of the Gentiles made into a marketplace?” [Wiersbe, With the Word, p. 487]

“The doctrine of the passage is simply this, that they who enjoy extraordinary privileges, or expect extraordinary favors, are under corresponding obligations to do the will of God; and moreover, that the nearer the manifestation of God’s mercy, whether in time or in eternity, the louder the call to righteousness of life.” [Alexander II, p. 334]

“Isaiah is not inviting people to seek salvation by their own works of righteousness but urging (along with the rest of the Bible) those who belong to the Lord to devote themselves to the life that reflects what he has revealed to be right…. In 51:1 pursuing righteousness is parallel to seeking the Lord; in 51:7 those who know righteousness have his law in their hearts. When it says that the Lord’s righteousness is about to come, the meaning is that in a future event the fullness of his righteous character and the fullness of his righteous ways of working will be revealed. It will be a work of salvation, i.e. rescue and deliverance for his people. The remainder of chapters 56-55 reveal that the salvation in which his righteousness will be revealed is, on the one hand, the deliverance of his people from the whole environment and plague of sin, and on the other hand, his devastating and merited judgment on those who rebel against him.” [Motyer, p. 464]

“The Sabbath is singled out as the sign of the covenant and is representative of all the commandments… How one relates to the Sabbath is an indication as to how one relates to the other commandments….

“The Gentiles (‘foreigners’) as well as the eunuch show their commitment to the covenant Lord by keeping the Sabbath. In the past the eunuch could not be a part of the covenant community; there were also limitations on foreigners (Deut. 23:1-8). However, the renewed covenant is extended to those who were previously unfit.…

“The temple will be known as the ‘house of prayer’ for all nations (v. 7b). The prophet looks forward to the new era in which Jews and Gentiles will worship God together. Our Lord Jesus brought together the two folds ― the Jews and the Gentiles.” [VanGemeren, p. 509]

Eunuchs “are shown that the law against them (Dt. 23:1) was given in love (to make this cruel mutilation abhorrent in Israel, if nowhere else), and this love now sensitively matched their handicap within something better (5) answering their physical exclusion with the word within, and their lack of a posterity with the word everlasting. The Foreigners are likewise treated according to their attitude, not their birth ― a principle already established by God’s acceptance, despite Dt. 23:3, of Ruth the convert. But the great words of v 7b are too big for the temple’s trustees (cf. Mk 11:17; Acts 21:28). With the little known v 8, cf. Jn 10:16, it is one of several indications that our Lord know these chapters intimately.

9. His Problems (56:9-57:13a)

“Two oracles are brought together to form this section. The first (56:9-12) is a condemnation of self-seeking leadership, and the second (57:1-21), a ground-level view of life exposing the tension between the righteous (57:1) and those who have joined the cults (3-13) and forgotten the Lord (11). Corresponding to these two groups there is a double forecast. The one enters into peace (2, 19), the Lord dwells with them (15) and prepares for them a way home (14); the other he abandons to such help as their idols can give (13), and they do not know peace (20f.). Plainly, therefore, the ideal of verses 1-8 is far from being realized.” [Motyer, p. 467]

1. Unfaithful leaders (56:9-12)

“Our own phrases, dumb dogs, sleeping dogs, greedy dogs, all substantially, in vs 10-11a, and they characterize the spiritual leaders (watchmen; cf. Ezk. 3:17), while shepherds is usually the OT tern for rulers. The sequence is instructive: spiritually, to have no vision (10a; cf. 1 Sa. 3:1) is to have no message (10b) and to drift into escapism (10c) and self-pleasing (11a). Indeed, the shepherds are behaving like their sheep, as they all turn to their own way (11b; cf. 53:6). Worse, they are predators and drunkards (11c-12), pushing greed and escapism to the limit.” [Kidner, p. 665]

“The titles…watchmen (10a) and shepherds (11c), contrast two aspects of the true leader ― to guard from external danger and to care for internal need…. Two words lie side by side in verse 10a: watchmen and blind, and in verse 10c, dogs and mute…. The eyes of the leaders, which should be turned outwards, whether in guardianship (10a-d) or in care (11c-f) are turned inwards to their own welfare. The third stanza opens (11c) with an indignant outburst: ‘And these are shepherds!’” [Motyer, p. 468-469]

“The dogs particularly meant are shepherd’s dogs (Job xxx.1), whose task it was to watch the flock, and by their barking give notice of approaching danger. But these are dumb dogs which cannot even bark, and therefore wholly useless. They are also negligent and lazy. Far from averting peril or announcing it, they do not see it. What is before expressed by the figure of a blind watchman, is here expressed by that of a shepherd’s dog asleep.” [Alexander II, p. 338-339]

“To incompetence (10), self-concern (11ab) and selfish preoccupation (11cef), the rulers added complacency about tomorrow.” [Motyer, p. 469]

“The language here employed strikingly depicts the feelings of the voluptuous in every age.” [Henderson in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 338]

1.     Unfaithful people (57:1-10)

“The view of society at palace level (56:9-12) is now replaced by a view of society at the popular level, where the righteous perish (1), people get caught up with cults and isms’ (3-5) and are carried along helplessly on the tide of national polices they are powerless to stop (9-10). Here God seems strangely remote, yet some find him close at hand (15), and there are those who live with a peace and confidence which is by no means the experience of all (19-21).” [Motyer, p. 469]

“The central theme of the passage is the contrast between the prostitute’s family and the Lord’s family. Verses 3-5…examine the prostitute’s family, and in verses 6-13d…we meet the prostitute herself. In parallel with this, verse 15 introduces the Lord and his household; and parallel to the doings of the prostitute (5-13d) are the sovereign acts of God (16-19a) whereby he took those who merited his wrath, healed and comforted them, and enabled them to repent and mourn before him.” [Motyer, p. 469]

“Flagrant apostasy. The watchmen have relaxed (56:9-12), and evil has duly flooded in. The times could well be those of Manasseh, Hezekiah’s apostate son, whose persecution of the innocent (2 Ki. 21:16) would accord with v 1, and whose burning his own son (2 Ki. 21:6) matches the revival of Molech worship here (5b, 9).” [Kidner, p. 665]

“The righteous is not ‘perishing’ but entering peace; the ‘gathering’ is not purposeless but is a mercy extended to such as would find the burden of coming trouble more than they could bear, and consequently they are mercifully removed before it strikes…. It is…a deliberate ‘taking away’ in order to be spared from evil/’from the face of calamity’…” [Motyer, p. 470-471]

“The righteous dies, and is at rest; but ye, what will ye make at last of your derision of the righteous, and of the follies and idolatries wherein ye trust? Nothing.” [Matthew Arnold in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 339]

“Wherever they are, the people are corrupt, whether they go to the ravines (v. 6), to the hills (v. 7), stay at home (v. 8), or go to Sheol (v. 9).” [VanGemeren, p. 509]

“We have here two aspects of Canaanite cults. First, the fertility cult, associated with the evergreen tree as a symbol of life and expressed in orgiastic rites. Secondly, there is the cult of Molech with its demand for human sacrifice. There may be a deliberate contrast here between cults of life (fertility) and cults of death (human sacrifice) as summarizing the total range of hateful affronts to the Lord. To the Canaanite mind, sexual acts performed in the sanctuary were directed to Baal in the hope of reminding him of his work of fertilizing humans, animals, and land and stimulating him to function. But to the Bible such practices were not ‘hallowed’ by being ‘religious’. They were ‘lust’ (cf. Nu. 25:1ff.), the satisfaction and excitement of the worshipper replacing the will and glory of God in worship.” [Motyer, p. 472]

“From speaking of literal whoredom it is a natural transition to the figure of Israel as the wife turned prostitute. In v 6-13 where (you is consistently feminine singular) the metaphor such as bed, symbols (i.e. the prostitute’s trade signs), perfumes etc. are intertwined with the actualities, such as sacrifice and idols in the religious realm, and ambassadors in the political realm….

“There is loving perception in the picture of weary doggedness in v 10 and of infatuation and coming disillusion in vs 11-13.” [Kidner, p. 655]

1. Holy Wrath (57:11-13a-d)

“…Israel’s prostitution of herself [was] in order to secure the military ‘clout’ of the great powers on her side…. This is…a straight reminder that when the people of God seek strength and security in and through the world all they achieve is death.” [Motyer, p. 474]

“In contrast to the Lord, committed to ‘collecting’…a worldwide people to himself (56:8), the prostitute-driven people have collected…false gods. Substantial they may seen but a wind a mere breath, a ‘whiff’ is enough to blow them away!” [Motyer, p. 475]

10. His Hope (57:13e-21)

“Now the tone changes and the prophet sets forth the gracious will of Jehovah toward His repentant people.” [Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 340]

“Abundant grace…the theme of God as Savior, vividly presented here. In v 14 he is the masterful liberator. In v 15 the conjunction of the lofty and the lowly prepares us for Mt. 11:28-30; Jn. 1:14. V. 16 echoes Gn. 6:3 on God’s forbearance, and vs 17-18 expound his frank resolve to reclaim the undeserving and unpromising, summed up in the memorable first line of v 18. …So the offer of grace is crystallized to reappear in Eph. 2:17 as the germ of Paul’s gospel to the Gentiles. …The plight of the wicked is consequently seen, more clearly than in 48:22, in terms of the salvation they have refused. Only their choice separates the Peace, peace of v 19 from the no peace of v 21.” [Kidner, p. 665]

“High is what the Lord is in himself ― transcendent; lofty/’upraised’ is what he is in relation to all else ― over all.” [Motyer, p. 475]

“As God hath two dwelling-places, heaven and a contrite heart, so hath the devil — hell and a proud heart.” [Thomas Watson in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 770]

“The terms indicate a rapacious person, one who breaks through all bounds in order to acquire gain.” [Henderson in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 341]

“He went on frowardly in the way of his heart, in his evil way. He was not sensible of the displeasure of God that he was under. He felt the smart of the rod, but had no regard at all to the hand; the more he was crossed in his worldly pursuits the more eager he was in them. He either would not see his error or if he saw it would not amend it. Covetousness was the way of his heart; it was what he was inclined to and intent upon, and he would not be reclaimed, but in his distress he trespassed yet more, 2 Chron. 28:22. See the strength of the corruption of men’s hearts, and the sinfulness of sin, which will take its course in despite of God himself and all the flames of his wrath. See also how insufficient afflictions of themselves are to reform men, unless God’s grace work with them.” [Matthew Henry’s Commentary IV, p. 263]

“On the side of God, this produced anger (I as enraged refers to the nature of God offended and roused), active opposition (I punished/’smote) and withdrawal of divine fellowship and favor (hid my face). But none of this effected a change in sinful man who kept on in his willful ways!’” [Motyer, p. 476]

“When this sinner here went on forwardly in the way of his heart, one would think it should have followed, ‘I have seen his ways and will destroy him, will abandon him, will never have any more to do with him.” But such are the riches of divine mercy and grace, and so do they rejoice against judgment, that it follows, I have seen his ways and will heal him. See how God’s goodness takes occasion from man’s badness to appear so much the more illustrious; and where sin has abounded grace much more abounds. God’s reasons for mercy are fetched from within himself, for in us there appears nothing but what is provoking: ‘I have seen his ways, and yet I will heal him for my own name’s sake. God knew how bad people were, and yet would not cast them off. But observe the method. God will first give him grace, and then, and not till then, give him peace…” [Matthew Henry’s Commentary IV, p. 263]