The Pulpit Commentary — Isaiah — Volume 1 — Section 31

n THE PEOPLE HAVil ADDBD l\EBELLION TO INGRATITUDE, They ha\te· forsaken reviled, "gone backward" from him. Thie ie a climax of sin. Our passions are eve; in movement; t.here is no st,agnation. Insensibility to God's goodness eoon Icade to antipathy, antipathy to acUve hatred, and this t.o open revolt. "Be ye thankful." The ne_glect of the heart an~ its proper attit~de t.o God is cer~ain to lay us open to every sm. The gr-eat.est physical pests of the city, and not less its moral corruptione, may be traced to neglect. Some "covenant" of God made known to us in natural or in epiritual law has been broken; hence sin and sorrow, and hence alone, as the prophets ever teach. III. REAVEN AND EARTH WITNESSltS OF MAN'e GUILT. The whole language and style call up t.o mind the court of justice. All human events form part of a drama of which Goo and the angels are spectators. We in all our thoughts and deeds are s:U.rounded by a great cloud of spectators. The great solid mountains, for example, eeem the very symbols of those fixed laws by which our actions must be judged. Napoleon in Egypt called his soldiers to reflect that " forty ~nturies were looking down upon them from the pyramids." By a similar figure, Micah summonethe people to trial in the presence of the mountains (vi. 2); the Deuteronomist appeals to heaven and earth to listen to his words (xxxii. 1). So does a psalmist (Ps. l.) represent Jehovah as demand- ing the attention of earth from east to west. All our acts run out into a -universal significance. • • • ~IV. THE EXTBEMITY OF NATIONAL RUIN. The people have rui,., the whole course of sin, have left no stone unturned in the' attempt t.o defeat Jehovah; and-'lo!-the result. The body corporate is one mass of disease -and wounds, fresh and blfeding. The land is deva:stat.ed and fire-scarred. Barbarians are devouring it; it remmds· of awful Sodom's ruin. Jerusalem, indeed, is as yet unscathed ; but shl!• stands alone in the midst of the dread silence. Like " a booth in the vineyard, a hammock in a cucumber-field," is she I Thus, when appeals to the ear have been repeatedly neglected, God paints the trutb upon the field of vision. If we heed not the voice, we must feel the weight of the hand, of the Lord. Yet there is still a spark of hope. Jerusalem is all but, yet not quite, a Sodom or Gomorrah. There is still a remnant of people left'. Thank God, while there is life there is hope. At the very moment when w_e are tempted t.o say of the ruined nation, the broken life, "All ,is lost I " a voice is heard, "All may yet be restored !"-J. Vers. 10-17.-The people's plen, considered. The leading men of Jerusalem are supposed to reply to the charge of Jehovah, pointing to the elaborate manner in which his worship is kept up. And Jehovah rt1jects their plea with scorn. • I. THE Drvnra INDIGNATION AGAINST WICKEDNESS. No more scathing denunciation could there be than to term the rulers of the holy city " chiefs of Sodom," aild the people in general "people of Gomorrah." Those were names of horror and shame. Christ used them in the same manner of extreme denunciation. Three forms of sin were prevalent--luxury, violence,;and oppress,io~ . Th_e wid~l!l':and the orphan stand out especially as victims of greed and hard-hearted. grasping selfishness. As nothing could be more humane a:nd gentle than the spirit of the Law, so nothing could be more wicked than the disregard of it. The Talmud, no less than the prophets, said the strongest things against injustice. The judge is particularly cautioned not to be biassed in favour of th£ poor against th£ rick. What a light does this throw upon the fine education of the conscience! How much more flagrant the opposae fault! "He who unjustly hands over one man's goods to another, he shall pay God for it with his own soul In the hour when the judge sits in judgment over his fellow-man, he shall feel as it were a sword pointed at his own heart." So says the Talmud. Jerusalem had evidently, in the earlier time of Isaiah, been obscuring its'highest conscience. II. DIVINE CO:!S"TEMPT FOB SACBIFICEB AND RITUAL. 1. These things were never beautiful nor acceptable unless as expressions of puty. If the piety were not existent, the streams of blood, the reek of incense, became a spiritual disgust. The beasts chosen for aa.cruice were from the meeker and pursued animals: how horrible a lie for the persecutor and the proud to bring such symbols to God I Says the 'l'almud, " Look at &ripture: there is not a single bird more persecuted than the dove; yet God has e:hOlltY.l her to be offered up on his alta.r. 'l'he bull.is hunted by the lion, the sheep b1  THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH. 15