The Pulpit Commentary — Isaiah — Volume 1 — Section 28

(eee, be.sides the present :passage, Job xxvii. 8, 9; Prov. i. 28; Jer. xi. 11 ; Ezek. viii. 18; Heb. v1. 4-6; 1. 26-29; 1 John v. 16). Vere. 16-20.~-No retwn tu God'sfavoor '!Dithou,t amendment <if life. The outward show of religion, which the Israelites maintained, vain and futile as it was, seemed. to indicato that they were not wholly irreclaimable-they did not desire to break altogether with God. The prophet, therefore, assumes that they would wish to know the way by which they may remove God's anger, and ente1 once more into favour with him; and he proceeds to point out that the one and only road open to them is to amend their ways-to reverse their course of life. Thie amendment cons:·IBts in two things : one negative, the· other positive. I. NEGATIVELY: AMENDMENT CONSISTS IN CEASING TO DO EVIL. This is the first thing needed. Men must break off their sins, put away the iniquity of their doings, reso- lutely determine:that the works of darkness shall be done by them no more. The works will be different in different cases. To one man they will be impure acts and words ; to another, falsehood, deception, equivocation; to another, profanity of speech; to another, drunkenness; to another, intemperate anger, and so on. To the Israelites at this time, or at any rate to their chief men, who are here specially addressed (ver. 10), the evil-doing most common, and to which they were most prone, was cruelty and oppression. '!'he chief men acted as judges, held courts, heard complaints, determined causes; but, instead of seeking to do justice between man and man, they sought merely to advance their own interests by means of the office entrusted to them. They accepted bribes from rich suitors to determine law-suits in their favour; they leaned in their judgments against the weak and the defenceless. They were probably a clique, who enriched themselves by playing into each others' hands, and ousting weak persons from their properties and estates by legal artifices. .All this whole system of evil-doing they were required, first of all, to put aside, before they could hope that God would look upon them with anything but anger and reprobation. II. POSITIVELY: AMENDMENT CONSISTS IN LEARNING TO DO WELL. Negative goodness is not enough. God expects each man to glorify him by good actions. Those who have gone ·astray must not only retrace their steps, but must enter resolutely on the path of virtue. 'fhey must "set themselves in some good way." And this must be especially done in the matters wherein they have failed. 'l'he Jewish judges had failed in their task of administering justice-they had given unjust sentences, favoured oppressors, dealt hardly with the widow and the orphan. Hence the prophet's exhortations to them are "Seek out justice ; correct the oppressor; right the orphan; plead the cause of the widow" (ver. 17). And so it must be with all the varieties of evil-doers. Each must be exhorted to the virtue which is the opposite of the vice that he has indulged in. Each must labour, if he really seeks restoration to God's favour, to do deeds the very opposite of those which he did formerly. If he was a drunkard, he does well to become a total abstainer; if a glutton, to chasten his flesh by fasting; if impure, to give him- self to the reclaiming of outcasts; if niggardly, "to sell all that he has and give to the poor;" if violent, to suffer wrong, and turn his cheek to the smiter. From the nature of amendment, the prophet proceeds to its consequences, which are likewise twofold, consisting in- t Tim CLEANSING oF THE INDIVIDUAL BOUL. Here much is kept back which is revealed later, as (1) the mode whereby the soul is cleansed, or in other words, the doctrine of the· atonement, which appears in eh. liiL 5, 6; (2) the necessity of laying hold of the 11.tonement by faith (Rom. iii. 25; iv. 5, etc.); and (3) the immediate removal of the guilt of sin, when God justifies us, and the gradual removal of its taint, as he sanctifies us. But the declaration of the fact of our cleansing is directly made, and made with the utmost plainness : "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow," etc. The cleansing will be entire, complete, thorough. Snow will not be purer than the redeemed soul, which" the blood of Jesus Christ has cleansed from all sin" (1 John i. 7). II. A REWARD, EXTERNAL TO THE SOUL ITSELF, wmcB Gon's l'BEE GRACE WILL BESTOW. Here still more is kept back. The reward held out is merely temporal: "Ye shall eat the good of the land." Ye shall Jive in peace and prosperity, under your own vines and fig trees, and enjoy the fruits of the earth, which God in his bounty gives you.  12 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH, [on. 1. 1-31,