Yet He too is wise and brings disaster; He does not call back His words. He will rise up against the house of the wicked and against the allies of evildoers. Sermons
Yet he... will bring evil, and will not call back his words Doubtless God seems to call back his words. "The Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do" ( Exodus 32:14; 2 Samuel 24:16; Judges 2:18, etc.). "He heard their cry... and repented, according to the multitude of his mercies", ( Psalm 105:44, 45). Yet, says the prophet, "he will bring evil and not call back his words." How explain this? The explanation of it is found in the fact that there is some necessary reservation understood, if not expressed, in the Divine promise and in the Divine threatening. I. HIS RESERVATION AND CONSISTENCY IN PROMISE. God promises life to the obedient and the faithful; yet there are those who believe themselves, and are believed, to be among this number, whose end is destruction. Has God called back his word? No; for his promise was contingent on their steadfastness, and they have forfeited all claim on his promised word (Joshua 24:20; Psalm 85:8; Ezekiel 33:13; John 15:6; Hebrews 6:4:8). II. HIS RESERVATION AND CONSISTENCY IN THREATENING. Although God may seem to call back his words of solemn threatening, yet he "will bring evil;" he is not inconsistent with himself. 1. God reveals his wrath against sin. He declares that it shall not go unpunished; that the soul that sinneth shall die; that the wages of sin is death. 2. God offers pardon. The message of the gospel of Christ is essentially and emphatically one of Divine mercy. 3. His mercy in Christ Jesus is large and free. It is not grudging, half-hearted. It is not like the forgiveness we extend to one another (Isaiah 55:7-9). It means a complete restoration of the estranged but reconciled child to full parental favor (Luke 15:22, 23). Where, then, is the Divine consistency? It is found in the consideration that: 4. His declaration of penalty was always contingent on the attitude of the sinner. (Ezekiel 33:14, 15.) It is not intended to be absolute and unalterable, whatever be the future career of the guilty. Like all his promises, God's warnings are conditional. God does not call back his own words from their meaning or their fulfillment, he calls us back, through them, to our duty and to our right relation to himself. And, besides: 5. He does bring evil in some serious measure. For: (1) Previous to our penitence sin has wrought suffering, sorrow, weakness. (2) At the time of penitential return it works self-reproach, shame, anxiety. (3) Reconciliation is inevitably followed by some kind and some degree of spiritual deterioration; there is a lost power, a lessened influence, a narrowed sphere - the absolutely irremovable consequences of repeated wrong-doing and protracted ill-being. - C. Yet He also is wise. You have been clever and successful, but have you forgotten that "God also is wise," that He too has His policy, and acts reasonably and consistently? You think you have been making history; but God also works in history, and surely, to put it on the lowest ground, with as much cleverness and persistence as you do. () The forgetfulness, against which Isaiah directs this shaft of satire, is the besetting sin of very religious people, of very successful people, and of very clever people. () () : — After Moscow, Napoleon is reported to have exclaimed, "The Almighty is too strong for me."()
People Egyptians, Isaiah, Israelites, JeremiahPlaces Egypt, Jerusalem, Mount Zion, ZionTopics Able, Arise, Aside, Bring, Bringeth, Brings, Changed, Disaster, Doers, Evil, Evildoers, Evil-doers, Helpers, Iniquity, Purpose, Recalleth, Retract, Rise, Risen, Though, Wicked, Wise, Workers, YetOutline 1. The prophet shows the folly and danger of trusting Egypt, and forsaking God
6. He exhorts to conversion
8. He shows the fall of Assyria
Dictionary of Bible Themes Isaiah 31:2 1180 God, wisdom of
8736 evil, warnings against Isaiah 31:1-2 4155 divination Isaiah 31:1-3 5003 human race, and God
5864 futility
8463 priority, of faith, hope and love Library Three Pictures of one Reality
'As birds flying, so will the Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem; defending also He will deliver it; and passing over He will preserve it'--ISAIAH xxxi. 5. The immediate occasion of this very remarkable promise is, of course, the peril in which Jerusalem was placed by Sennacherib's invasion; and the fulfilment of the promise was the destruction of his army before its gates. But the promise here, like all God's promises, is eternal in substance, and applies to a community only because it applies to each …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy ScriptureThe Lord's Furnace
'The Lord, whose fire is in Zion, and His furnace in Jerusalem.'-- ISAIAH xxxi. 9. This very remarkable characterisation of God stands here as a kind of seal, set upon the preceding prophecy. It is the reason why that will certainly be fulfilled. And what precedes is mainly a promise of a deliverance for Israel, which was to be a destruction for Israel's enemies. It is put in very graphic and remarkable metaphors: 'Like as a lion roareth on his prey when a multitude of shepherds is called forth …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture What God Is
John iv. 24.--"God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." We have here something of the nature of God pointed out to us, and something of our duty towards him. "God is a Spirit," that is his nature, and "man must worship him," that is his duty, and that "in spirit and in truth," that is the right manner of the duty. If these three were well pondered till they did sink into the bottom of our spirits, they would make us indeed Christians, not in the letter, …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning Of Conversion
Of Conversion "Be ye truly converted unto that God from whom ye have so deeply revolted" (Isa. xxxi. 6). To be truly converted is to avert wholly from the creature, and turn wholly unto God. For the attainment of salvation it is absolutely necessary that we should forsake outward sin and turn unto righteousness: but this alone is not perfect conversion, which consists in a total change of the whole man from an outward to an inward life. When the soul is once turned to God a wonderful facility is …
Madame Guyon—A Short and Easy Method of Prayer Of Perfect Conversion, which is an Effect of this Method of Prayer --Two of Its Aids, the Attraction of God, and the Central Inclination of The
"Turn ye unto Him from whom the children of Israel have deeply revolted" (Isa. xxxi. 6). Conversion is nothing else but a turning from the creature to God. Conversion is not perfect, though it is necessary for salvation, when it is merely a turning from sin to grace. To be complete, it must be a turning from without to within. The soul, being turned in the direction of God, has a great facility for remaining converted to Him. The longer it is converted, the nearer it approaches to God, and attaches …
Jeanne Marie Bouvières—A Short Method Of Prayer And Spiritual Torrents That it is not Lawful for the Well Affected Subjects to Concur in Such an Engagement in War, and Associate with the Malignant Party.
That It Is Not Lawful For The Well Affected Subjects To Concur In Such An Engagement In War, And Associate With The Malignant Party. Some convinced of the unlawfulness of the public resolutions and proceedings, in reference to the employing of the malignant party, yet do not find such clearness and satisfaction in their own consciences as to forbid the subjects to concur in this war, and associate with the army so constituted. Therefore it is needful to speak something to this point, That it is …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning But Though Prayer is Properly Confined to Vows and Supplications...
But though prayer is properly confined to vows and supplications, yet so strong is the affinity between petition and thanksgiving, that both may be conveniently comprehended under one name. For the forms which Paul enumerates (1 Tim. 2:1) fall under the first member of this division. By prayer and supplication we pour out our desires before God, asking as well those things which tend to promote his glory and display his name, as the benefits which contribute to our advantage. By thanksgiving we duly …
John Calvin—Of Prayer--A Perpetual Exercise of Faith Scriptures Showing the Sin and Danger of Joining with Wicked and Ungodly Men.
Scriptures Showing The Sin And Danger Of Joining With Wicked And Ungodly Men. When the Lord is punishing such a people against whom he hath a controversy, and a notable controversy, every one that is found shall be thrust through: and every one joined with them shall fall, Isa. xiii. 15. They partake in their judgment, not only because in a common calamity all shares, (as in Ezek. xxi. 3.) but chiefly because joined with and partakers with these whom God is pursuing; even as the strangers that join …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning Sennacherib (705-681 B. C. )
The struggle of Sennacherib with Judaea and Egypt--Destruction of Babylon. Sennacherib either failed to inherit his father's good fortune, or lacked his ability.* He was not deficient in military genius, nor in the energy necessary to withstand the various enemies who rose against him at widely removed points of his frontier, but he had neither the adaptability of character nor the delicate tact required to manage successfully the heterogeneous elements combined under his sway. * The two principal …
G. Maspero—History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, V 8 Exposition of Chap. Iii. (ii. 28-32. )
Ver. 1. "And it shall come to pass, afterwards, I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy; your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions." The communication of the Spirit of God was the constant prerogative of the Covenant-people. Indeed, the very idea of such a people necessarily requires it. For the Spirit of God is the only inward bond betwixt Him and that which is created; a Covenant-people, therefore, without such an inward …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament The Upbringing of Jewish Children
The tenderness of the bond which united Jewish parents to their children appears even in the multiplicity and pictorialness of the expressions by which the various stages of child-life are designated in the Hebrew. Besides such general words as "ben" and "bath"--"son" and "daughter"--we find no fewer than nine different terms, each depicting a fresh stage of life. The first of these simply designates the babe as the newly--"born"--the "jeled," or, in the feminine, "jaldah"--as in Exodus 2:3, 6, 8. …
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life 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 31:2 NIV
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