The Pulpit Commentary — Isaiah — Volume 1 — Section 99

awakened the gratitude which it ought to have awakened? Has his Ohurch brought forth such fruit as might have been anticipated? Is it not to be feared that eTen now bis eye, resting on bis third vineyard "ith its searching gaze, looks for something which it does not find-demands "grapes," and sees little but "wild grapes" jl Vers. 8-17.-The appropriateness of God's punishments. Many of the punishments of sin follow in the way of natural consequence, and these are generally acknowledged to be fitting and appropriate; e.g.- I. IDLENESS 1s PUNISHED BY WANT. "If a man will not work, neither shall he eat, (2 Thess. iii. 10). Labour naturally produces wealth, or at any rate value of some kind; and those who work the hardest naturally acquire the most. The idle cannot complain if they have few of this world's goods, since they have made no efforts to obtain them. 'l'bey are fitly punished for their waste of time in sloth by the want of those good things which they might have procured by diligence in toil. The wise man will not give indiscriminate relief to the poor and needy. There is much poverty which is the simple natural result and suitable punishment of idle" loafing" habits. II. DRU1'KEN1'ESS IS PUNISHED BY LOSS OF MENTAL POWER, AND IN SOME OABEB BY A TEnrnnLE MALADY. The drunkard voluntarily confuses his mental faculties, and suspends their healthy operation, each time that he indulges in the sin whereto he is addicted. What can be more appropriate than that he should be punished by a per- manent diminution of his intellectual vigour, a loss of nerve, promptitude, and decision? He also deranges his bodily functions by causing an undue flow of blood to the brain, and an nndue excitement of the nerves whose connection is so close with the cerebral tissues. It is most natural and most fitting that such ill treatment of these delicate tissues should result in permanent injury to them, and cause the dreadful malady known to medical science as dilirium tremens. The drunkard ".receives within himself" a most appropriate" recompense of his error" (Rom. i. 27). IIL LusT IS PUNISHED BY A LOATHSOME DISEASE. The nature of the subject here is such as to preclude much illustration. But what can be more appropriate than the punishment of the most foul and filthy of sins by a disease which is foul and filthy and loathsome, alike to others and to the object of it ? The body marred and scarred, the blood infected, the whole constitution undermined, form not only a just, but a most fitting, punishment of one, the peculiarity of whose sin is that he "sins against his own body n (1 Cor. vi. 18). In the case of Israel special national sins were punished by special judgments, also peculiarly appropriate; e.g.- L TIIE GREED WHICH JOINED HOUSE TO HOUSE AND FIELD TO FIELD was punished by an invasion which caused the destruction and ruin of the annexed houses (ver. 9), and the desolation of the annexed estates. '£be ruin of the vineyards was such that it was scarcely worth while to gather the produce, the continued devastation of the corn lands such that the harvest did not nearly equal the seed corn. Nomad tribes pastured their flocks on the over-large estates, and the so-called owners derived little or no benefit from their acquisitions (vcrs. 10, 17). II. DmTh"'KEN REVELRY was punished by the captivity of the revellers, who were carried off as slaves into a strange laud, and there experienced the usual fate of slaves, which included bitter experience of hunger and thirst (ver. 13). 'l'he dole allowed the slave was seldom more than sufficient to keep body and soul together. His drink was water. Kept to hard labour on imperial palaces and other "great works," he lost all cheerfulness, all lightness of heart, all love of song or music. Asked by his task- =ters to "sing them one of the songs of Zion," he declined sadly ; the harp of his revels was "hung upon the willows" of Babylon (Ps. cxxxvii. 2-4). God's judgrnents upon other nations have oft~n bad the same character of appro- priateness. Egypt, whose great sin bad been pride (Ezek. xxix. 4), was condemned to be "the basest of the kingdoms" (ver. 15); never destroyed, but always subject to one people or another-Assyrian&, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Turks. Rome, the most cruel and bloody of conquering states, was made a prey, first to bloody tyrants of her own race, and theu to a succession of fierce and savage northern hordes-Goths, Huns, Vandals, Durgundians, lieruli, Lombards-who spared neither age nor sex, and delighted in ca,rn&ge 11,nd waesacre, Macedonia, rai~ to greatness by her militJr1 tltl. v. 1-30.J THE BOO:rt or THE PROPHE:T ISAIAH. 85