The Pulpit Commentary — Isaiah — Volume 2 — Section 141

Vers. 8-13.-Tlze great controversy. The challenge of cb. xli. is renewed, and Jehovah's claims are contrasted with those of the false gods. I. ASSEMBLING OF THE NATIONS. Israel is first brought forth by the ministers of justice. The people were once blind and deaf, but now are in possession of their faculties. And then, over age.inst this small company of the faithful, the vast host of the heathen appears. And the challenge is issued-What god of the nations can produce predictions such as those in vers. 1-7? If this can be done, let them name former things-appeal to past events correctly foretold, and establish this by testimony. But the appeal is met by silence, by impotence. There are no witnesses forthcoming. And so once more idol-power is convicted and exposed as being "nothing in the world.'' II. TnE WITNESS TO JEHOVAH. Israel is now called upon. She has known again and again the power of Jehovah to foresee and foretell the future. Let their faith, then, be wholly given to him-a faithfounded on evidence, a faith rooted in intelligence .. This faith cleaves to Jehovah ns the Eternal. He is both before and after all created things. These idols have been the objects of an illusory worship-formed and fashioned things. 'l'heir power breaks with the decay of the nations of whom they have been the imagined patrons. In the hour of adversity they have seemed, like Baal, asleep or gone on a journey-have lifted no arm to save. Jehovah remains the sole able God, the exclusive Deliverer. No "stranger," no foreign God had power for good or evil in Israel. To this test of ability to meet the wants of the times, true and false religions must ultimately be brought. The doctrine or the institution which visibly is saving men from evil, emancipating them from bondage to vice, must have a Divine element in it, And Christianity seems to need no other apology than the witne8s of what it has done and is doing to purify, save, and bless mankind, III. His IBREVERSIBLE WORK. "I work, and who can turn it back?" Messengers of his vengeance have been sent to Babylonia, and all the mixed multitude will be brought down into their proud ships, hopelessly overwhelmed. The great deliverance from Egypt-eternally monumental of Jehovah's power to deliver-shall itself be sur- passed by the coming deliverance of Israel from the recesses of the earth. lt. is seen already "shooting forth," and a blissful picture of the future, peaceful, abundant, victorious over savagery, closes the representation. 1. God is Eternal. 2. He is unchangeo.bly the same. And this is the sure foundation of the security of his people. None can trust a fickle and a vacillating being. 3. He can deliver his people from all enemies, amidst every variety of circumstances. 4. None-whether man, demon, or god-ean resist him. Opposition to him is both wicked and vain. 'l'he condition of happinesa is to comply with his plans, and become servants in the furtherance of his designa.-J. Vere. 22-28.-Memories of «dl,e, I. Tm: FAITHLESSNESS OF THE PEOPLE. They he.vu forgotten the covenant of their God. They have neglected one of its first duties-- prayer, which marks dependence; or they had prayed to other gods; or their prayers had been merely ritual and formal. And this was the less excusable as the burden of 11e.cri:fices had not le.id upon them during the exile, IBAlAH-U, t.  148 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH, [ou. XLm. 1-28.