58:1,2 The Holy Spirit had hypocrites of every age in view. Self-love and timid Christians may say, Spare thyself; dislike to the cross and other motives will say, Spare the rich and powerful; but God says, Spare not: and we must obey God, not men. We all need earnestly to pray for God's assistance in examining ourselves. Men may go far toward heaven, yet come short; and they may go to hell with a good reputation.

Verse 2. - They seek me daily, and delight to know my ways (compare the picture drawn in Isaiah 1:11-15). We have there exactly the same representation of a people honouring God with their lips, but whose hearts are far from him - zealous in all the outward forms of religion, even making "many prayers" (Isaiah 1:15), but yet altogether an offence to God. They are not conscious hypocrites - quite the reverse; they are bent on "doing righteousness," on not forsaking God's ordinance, on continually "approaching" him; but they are wholly without a proper sense of what religion is - they make it a matter of outward observance, and do not understand that it consists in the devotion of the heart. That did righteousness, and forsook not; rather, that hath done righteousness, and hath not forsaken. The righteousness is, of course, forensic legal righteousness-the offering of the appointed sacrifices, the abstaining from unclean meats, the avoidance of external defilement, the payment of vows, the observance of the one appointed fast, and the like. They ask of me the ordinances of justice. Either "they claim at God's hands righteous judgments on their enemies" (Delitzsch); or "they demand of God a fidelity to his covenant engagements correspondent to their own (assumed) fidelity to theirs." They take delight in approaching to God. So the LXX., the Vulgate, Calvin, Vitringa, and Kay. Others prefer to render, "they desire the approach of God" (Knobel, Delitzsch, Cheyne); i.e. they desire that he will come to help them against their foes.

Yet they seek me daily,.... Which may be considered as an acknowledgment of their external piety; or as a caution to the prophet not to be imposed upon by outward appearances; or as a reason why they should be rebuked sharply: they sought the Lord, either by prayer, or in the ministry of the word; they sought doctrine, as the Targum; they sought him, and that every day, or, however, every Lord's day; and yet they did not seek him with that diligence and intenseness of spirit, with their whole hearts, cordially and sincerely, as they ought to have done; they sought themselves, and the honour of men, rather than the Lord and his glory:

and delight to know my ways; not only his ways of creation and providence, but of grace; and also the ways which he prescribes and directs his people to walk in; not that they had a real delight in them, or in the knowledge of them, or such a delight as truly gracious souls have when they have the presence of God in them; are assisted by his Spirit; have their hearts enlarged with his love; find food for their souls, and have fellowship with the saints; but this delight was only seeming, and at most only in the knowledge and theory of these ways, but not in the practice of them; see Ezekiel 33:31,

as a nation that did righteousness: in general appeared to be outwardly righteous; had a form of godliness, and name to live, and yet dead, and so destitute of any works of true righteousness, at best only going about to establish a righteousness of their own:

and forsook not the ordinance of their God; the ordinance of assembling together in general; any of the ordinances of God in particular; hearing, reading, singing, praying, especially the ordinance of the supper, constantly attended to by them; see Luke 13:26,

they ask of me the ordinances of justice; not of justice between man and man, but of righteousness and religion with respect to God; they ask what are the ordinances of the Gospel, and the rules of worship and discipline, and whether there are any they are ignorant of; suggesting they were desirous of being instructed in them, and of complying with them:

they take delight in approaching to God; there is no right approaching God but through Christ, and gracious souls take a real delight in this way; but the approaching here is only in an external manner, by the performance of outward duties; and the delight is not in God, and communion with him; but in the service, performed as a work of their own, in which they trust, and in what they expect as the reward of it.

2. Put the stop at "ways"; and connect "as a nation that," &c. with what follows; "As a nation that did righteousness," thus answers to, "they ask of Me just judgments" (that is, as a matter of justice due to them, salvation to themselves, and destruction to their enemies); and "forsook not the ordinance of their God," answers to "they desire the drawing near of God" (that God would draw near to exercise those "just judgments" in behalf of them, and against their enemies) [Maurer]. So Jerome, "In the confidence, as it were, of a good conscience, they demand a just judgment, in the language of the saints: Judge me, O Lord, for I have walked in mine integrity." So in Mal 2:17, they affect to be scandalized at the impunity of the wicked, and impugn God's justice [Horsley]. Thus, "seek Me daily, and desire (English Version not so well, 'delight') to know My ways," refers to their requiring to know why God delayed so long in helping them. English Version gives a good, though different sense; namely, dispelling the delusion that God would be satisfied with outward observances, while the spirit of the law, was violated and the heart unchanged (Isa 58:3-14; Eze 33:31, 32; compare Joh 18:28), scrupulosity side by side with murder. The prophets were the commentators on the law, as their Magna Charta, in its inward spirit and not the mere letter.

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