The people will oppress one another, man against man, neighbor against neighbor; the young will rise up against the old, and the base against the honorable. Sermons
Babes shall rule over them. No greater calamity can come on a nation than the succession of mere children to the throne, and government by regency and party. Ahaz ascended the throne at the age of twenty ( 2 Chronicles 28:1). Manasseh at age of twelve; Josiah at age of eight ( 2 Chronicles 33:1; 2 Chronicles 34:1). The evil was, of course, exaggerated in Eastern countries, where kings are irresponsible despots. "In an Eastern monarchy the rule of a young king, rash and without experience, guided by counselors like himself, was naturally regarded as the greatest of evils, and the history of Rehoboam had impressed this truth on the mind of every Israelite." "Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child" ( Ecclesiastes 10:16). When the strong men and wise men are removed by disease and calamity, weaklings get into office and place of authority, and surely create fresh evils by their incapacity. I. THE EVIL OF RULERS WHO ARE CHILDREN IN AGE. Such, being unable to decide and act for themselves, are dependent on court advisers; so there is every opportunity for court intrigue, rivalry of parties, and the sacrifice of national interests to party advantage. Under weak governments class is set against class. Illustrate the petulance of boys in the exercise of assumed authority. It comes out even in their play. In old times young kings were under the supreme influence of the queen-mother, and she might be a Jezebel or an Athaliah. The most anxious times of English history are times of regency. II. THE EVIL OF RULERS WHO ARE CHILDREN IN UNDERSTANDING. Such as Rehoboam. The evil is qualified in constitutional countries; but even in them the king gives tone to society. It has often been a consequence of war that a land has been left to the government of the incompetent. Corruption at court has sometimes led the best men to retire from the government. Under such inefficient rule, in an Eastern kingdom, all is chaotic and anarchic; there is a condition which can only be fittingly represented by the Turkey or Egypt of our own times. Apply to the small kingdoms of - (1) society, (2) friendship, (3) families, and urge the importance, to the well-being of a nation, of manly men, and manly, strong, wisely ruling fathers. - R.T. And the people shall be oppressed. The dissolution of good order and political confusion. Oppression and pride everywhere prevail. () There is a natural relation of classes. Whilst all that is purely mechanical and arbitrary is to be viewed with suspicion, yet there is a natural sequence in things; there is, indeed, what is called a fitness or harmony of things; and when society is rightly inspired the base man knows that he is base, and his baseness is his weakness, and his weakness defines his position; and the child knows himself to be but a child, and therefore he behaves himself with discretion, and is limited by circumstances which he cannot control. Once let the moral centre be lost, and then you have lost all arithmetical counting, all geometrical relationship, all figure and form and mechanism and security, and the foursquare is thrown out of its parallel, and that which was right is numbered with that which is forbidden, () 1. Injurious and unneighbourly one towards another. "The people shall be oppressed everyone by his neighbour," and their princes, being children, take no care to restrain the oppressors, or relieve the oppressed. Nor is it to any purpose to appeal to them. 2. Insolent and disorderly towards their superiors. It is as ill an omen to a people as can be, when the rising generation among them is generally untractable, rude, and ungovernable, when "the child behaves himself proudly against the ancient"; whereas he should "rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man" (Leviticus 19:32). When young people are conceited and pert, and carry it scornfully towards their superiors, it is not only a reproach to themselves, but of ill consequence to the public; it slackens the reins of government, and weakens the hands that hold them. It is likewise ill with a people when persons of honour cannot support their authority, but are affronted by the base and beggarly; when judges are insulted by the mob, and their power set at defiance. () Homo homini lupus — man becomes a wolf to man; jusque datum sceleri — wickedness receives the stamp of law; nec hospes ab hospite tutus — the guest and the host are in danger from each other.()
People IsaiahPlaces Jerusalem, Sodom, ZionTopics Aged, Ancient, Base, Behave, Child, Crushed, Elder, Enlarge, Esteemed, Exacted, Fellow, Full, Honorable, Honourable, Honoured, Inferior, Insolent, Insolently, Lifted, Lightly, Low, Neighbor, Neighbour, Noble, Oppress, Oppressed, Position, Pride, Proudly, Rise, Storm, Themselves, Youth, YouthsOutline 1. The great calamities which come by sin
10. The different rewards of the righteous and wicked
12. The oppression and covetousness of the rulers
16. The judgments which shall be for the pride of the women
25. The general desolation
Dictionary of Bible Themes Isaiah 3:5 5727 old age, attitudes
5746 youth Isaiah 3:1-7 5700 headship Library A Paradox of Selling and Buying
'Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money.'--ISAIAH iii. 3. THE first reference of these words is of course to the Captivity. They come in the midst of a grand prophecy of freedom, all full of leaping gladness and buoyant hope. The Seer speaks to the captives; they had 'sold themselves for nought.' What had they gained by their departure from God?--bondage. What had they won in exchange for their freedom?-- only the hard service of Babylon. As Deuteronomy puts it: …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy ScriptureMarching Orders
'Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord. 12. For ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight: for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your reward.'--ISAIAH iii. 11, 12. These ringing notes are parts of a highly poetic picture of that great deliverance which inspired this prophet's most exalted strains. It is described with constant allusion to the first Exodus, …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture The Christian view of Sorrow
"A man of sorrow, and acquainted with grief" Is. Iii. 3. There is one great distinction between the productions of Heathen and of Christian art. While the first exhibits the perfection of physical form and of intellectual beauty, the latter expresses, also, the majesty of sorrow, the grandeur of endurance, the idea of triumph refined from agony. In all those shapes of old there is nothing like the glory of the martyr; the sublimity of patience and resignation; the dignity of the thorn-crowned Jesus. …
E. H. Chapin—The Crown of Thorns The Personal History of Herod - the Two Worlds in Jerusalem.
It is an intensely painful history, [581] in the course of which Herod made his way to the throne. We look back nearly two and a half centuries to where, with the empire of Alexander, Palestine fell to his successors. For nearly a century and a half it continued the battle-field of the Egyptian and Syrian kings (the Ptolemies and the Seleucidæ). At last it was a corrupt High-Priesthood - with which virtually the government of the land had all along lain - that betrayed Israel's precious trust. …
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah How those are to be Admonished who Praise the Unlawful Things of which they are Conscious, and those who While Condemning Them, in no Wise Guard
(Admonition 32.) Differently to be admonished are they who even praise the unlawful things which they do, and those who censure what is wrong, and yet avoid it not. For they who even praise the unlawful things which they do are to be admonished to consider how for the most part they offend more by the mouth than by deeds. For by deeds they perpetrate wrong things in their own persons only; but with the mouth they bring out wickedness in the persons of as many as there are souls of hearers, to …
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great "But Whereunto Shall I Liken this Generation?"
Matth. xi. 16.--"But whereunto shall I liken this generation?" When our Lord Jesus, who had the tongue of the learned, and spoke as never man spake, did now and then find a difficulty to express the matter herein contained. "What shall we do?" The matter indeed is of great importance, a soul matter, and therefore of great moment, a mystery, and therefore not easily expressed. No doubt he knows how to paint out this to the life, that we might rather behold it with our eyes, than hear it with our …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning Brief Memoir of Thomas Watson
Compiled by C. H. Spurgeon Thomas Watson's Body of Practical Divinity is one of the most precious of the peerless works of the Puritans; and those best acquainted with it prize it most. Watson was one of the most concise, racy, illustrative, and suggestive of those eminent divines who made the Puritan age the Augustan period of evangelical literature. There is a happy union of sound doctrine, heart-searching experience and practical wisdom throughout all his works, and his Body of Divinity is, beyond …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity Of Civil Government.
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. This chapter consists of two principal heads,--I. General discourse on the necessity, dignity, and use of Civil Government, in opposition to the frantic proceedings of the Anabaptists, sec. 1-3. II. A special exposition of the three leading parts of which Civil Government consists, sec. 4-32. The first part treats of the function of Magistrates, whose authority and calling is proved, sec. 4-7. Next, the three Forms of civil government are added, sec. 8. Thirdly, Consideration …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion Letter Li to the virgin Sophia
To the Virgin Sophia He praises her for having despised the glory of the world: and, setting forth the praises, privileges, and rewards of Religious Virgins, exhorts her to persevere. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, to the Virgin Sophia, that she may keep the title of virginity and attain its reward. I. Favour is deceitful and beauty is vain; but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised (Prov. xxxi. 31). I rejoice with you, my daughter, in the glory of your virtue, whereby, as I hear, you …
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux "All Our Righteousnesses are as Filthy Rags, and we all do Fade as a Leaf, and Our Iniquities, Like the Wind, have Taken us Away. "
Isaiah lxiv. 6, 7.--"All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and we all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away." Not only are the direct breaches of the command uncleanness, and men originally and actually unclean, but even our holy actions, our commanded duties. Take a man's civility, religion, and all his universal inherent righteousness,--all are filthy rags. And here the church confesseth nothing but what God accuseth her of, Isa. lxvi. 8, and chap. i. ver. …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning "Thou Shalt Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother. "
From this Commandment we learn that after the excellent works of the first three Commandments there are no better works than to obey and serve all those who are set over us as superiors. For this reason also disobedience is a greater sin than murder, unchastity, theft and dishonesty, and all that these may include. For we can in no better way learn how to distinguish between greater and lesser sins than by noting the order of the Commandments of God, although there are distinctions also within the …
Dr. Martin Luther—A Treatise on Good Works Concerning Salutations and Recreations, &C.
Concerning Salutations and Recreations, &c. [1273] Seeing the chief end of all religion is to redeem men from the spirit and vain conversation of this world and to lead into inward communion with God, before whom if we fear always we are accounted happy; therefore all the vain customs and habits thereof, both in word and deed, are to be rejected and forsaken by those who come to this fear; such as taking off the hat to a man, the bowings and cringings of the body, and such other salutations of that …
Robert Barclay—Theses Theologicae and An Apology for the True Christian Divinity A Sermon on Isaiah xxvi. By John Knox.
[In the Prospectus of our Publication it was stated, that one discourse, at least, would be given in each number. A strict adherence to this arrangement, however, it is found, would exclude from our pages some of the most talented discourses of our early Divines; and it is therefore deemed expedient to depart from it as occasion may require. The following Sermon will occupy two numbers, and we hope, that from its intrinsic value, its historical interest, and the illustrious name of its author, it …
John Knox—The Pulpit Of The Reformation, Nos. 1, 2 and 3. The Prophet Micah.
PRELIMINARY REMARKS. Micah signifies: "Who is like Jehovah;" and by this name, the prophet is consecrated to the incomparable God, just as Hosea was to the helping God, and Nahum to the comforting God. He prophesied, according to the inscription, under Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. We are not, however, entitled, on this account, to dissever his prophecies, and to assign particular discourses to the reign of each of these kings. On the contrary, the entire collection forms only one whole. At …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament Isaiah
CHAPTERS I-XXXIX Isaiah is the most regal of the prophets. His words and thoughts are those of a man whose eyes had seen the King, vi. 5. The times in which he lived were big with political problems, which he met as a statesman who saw the large meaning of events, and as a prophet who read a divine purpose in history. Unlike his younger contemporary Micah, he was, in all probability, an aristocrat; and during his long ministry (740-701 B.C., possibly, but not probably later) he bore testimony, as …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament Links Isaiah 3:5 NIV
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