The Pulpit Commentary — Isaiah — Volume 2 — Section 440

Ver. 9.-God's suffering sympathy. There is a verbal difficulty connected with the first clause of this verse. A little Hebrew word that is employed, if pronounced in one way, means "to him;" but, if pronounced in another way, it means "not." According to the one mode the clause will read, "In all their affliction there was affliction to him;" or, as in our English version," He was afflicted." According to the other mode the clause will read, "In all their affliction there was no affliction;" that is, nothing worth calling affliction, because his presence and help were so near to them in their time of need. Both give good meanings, but the spirit of the passage leads us, with Luther and other expositors, to prefer the former one. I. Goo CAN FEEL. It may be said that this needs no proof. But the God sometimes presented in theological systems, preached from our pulpits, and addressed in our prayers, does not really feel a.s we do. It is said that "he is complete in himself, infinitely full, infiuitely happy, infinitely satisfied. Nothing can add one jot to his happiness, nothing can diminish his bliss. He, as a King, recognizes and punishes sin and rebellion, but be does not feel hurt by it himself. No waves heave and toss on the quiet ocean of God." But is the impression left on our minds by all this concerning God quite true? And is that the God we are asked to love-that immovable statue? We want a God whose bosom heaves with feeling, whose face beams with smiles, who can pity us as a father pities. Too often the impression left on us is, that it is only Christ who can suffer, since he was a man. God cannot feel; Christ feels. Christ is in self- sacrifice, not God. But we must be far from the truth when we divide our vision, and with one eye see Christ, and with the other see God. Look with both eyes, and we shall see Christ in God, and God in Christ. This is true-God cannot be physically affected. We must not think of him as a body, capable of feeling bodily pain. He cannot be struck. He cannot be Rubject to disease. God is a Spirit. But be is a real Being. He is what we understand by a mora,l being-a moral being who can suRtain relations to other beings, and can be affected by the conditions and doings of other beings. Our deepest feelings-joys or sorrows-do not come from our bodies, but from our minds. And when we say that God can feel, we mean that his moral being can be affected, and that Lis precise glory lies in this-he does feel rightly, suitably, adequately, divinely, in every case. 1. God must feel if he can be said to have a perfect character. We should take no impressions from the wrongs or the goodnesses around us if we had no power of feeling, and so there could be no culture of character. If God cannot foe! it is no lunger intelligible to us to say that he is "good," that he is "love." 2. 'l'hat God can feel is taught by the imagery of Old Testament Scriptures. Constantly on. LXm. 1-19.J THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH. 457