Isaiah 33:24

And the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick,.... That is, the inhabitant of Zion, or Jerusalem, the church of Christ, Isaiah 33:20 and such are they that are born again in Zion, and brought up there;

And the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick: the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity. The inhabitant shall not say, I am sick.

The inhabitant, to wit, of Jerusalem, God’ s people, shall not say, I am sick; shall have no cause to complain of any sickness or calamity; shall be fully delivered from all their enemies and evil occurrents; shall enjoy perfect tranquillity and prosperity. The people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity: this may be added, either, 1. As the reason of the foregoing privilege. Their sins, the main causes of all their distresses, shall be pardoned; and therefore their sufferings, the effects of sin, shall cease. Or, 2. As an additional favour. They shall not only receive from me a glorious temporal deliverance; but, which is infinitely better, the pardon of all their sins, and all those spiritual and everlasting blessings which attend upon that mercy.

Isaiah 33:24 And the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick: the people that dwell therein [shall be] forgiven [their] iniquity.Ver. 24. And the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick.] sc., By reason of the long and strait siege. None shall be so lame, or sick and in pain (as here), but that he shall be in case to pursue and prey upon the enemies. The people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity.] Jehovah Rophe, or the physician, shall heal them on both sides, make them whole every whit. This is a most sweet promise, and highly to be prized by all that are heirs of the promises. “ Optandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano. ”

(24) The inhabitant shall not say, I am sick . . .—The words seem to have had their starting- point in the pestilence which attacked the Assyrian army, and which had probably been felt, during the siege, in Jerusalem itself. The prophet, seeing in such a pestilence the punishment of iniquity, couples together the two blessings of health and pardon. Healthy, because holy, was his report as to the restored Jerusalem. (Comp. Matthew 9:2.)

Verse 24. And the inhabitant shall not say] This verse is somewhat obscure. The meaning of it seems to be, that the army of Sennacherib shall by the stroke of God be reduced to so shattered and so weak a condition, that the Jews shall fall upon the remains of them, and plunder them without resistance; that the most infirm and disabled of the people of Jerusalem shall come in for their share of the spoil; the lame shall seize the prey; even the sick and the diseased shall throw aside their infirmities, and recover strength enough to hasten to the general plunder. See above. The last line of the verse is parallel to the first, and expresses the same sense in other words. Sickness being considered as a visitation from God, a punishment of sin; the forgiveness of sin is equivalent to the removal of a disease. Thus the psalmist: - "Who forgiveth all thy sin; And healeth all thine infirmities." Psalms 103:3. Where the latter line only varies the expression of the former. And our blessed Saviour reasons with the Jews on the same principle: "Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins are forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk?" Mr 2:9. See also Matthew 8:17; Isaiah 53:4. Qui locus Isaiae, 1 Peter 2:24, refertur ad remissionem peccatorum: hic vero ad sanationem morborum, quia ejusdem potentiae et bonitatis est utrumque praestare; et, quia peccatis remissis, et morbi, qui fructus sunt peccatorum, pelluntur. "Which passage of Isaiah has reference, in Isaiah 33:1; Isaiah 2:24, to the remission of sins, and here to the healing of diseases, because both are effects of the same power and goodness; and because with the remission of sins was associated the removal of disorders, the fruits of sin." - Wetstein on Matthew 8:17. That this prophecy was exactly fulfilled, I think we may gather from the history of this great event given by the prophet himself. It is plain that Hezekiah, by his treaty with Sennacherib, by which he agreed to pay him three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold, had stripped himself of his whole treasure. He not only gave him all the silver and gold that was in his own treasury and in that of the temple, but was even forced to cut off the gold from the doors of the temple and from the pillars, with which he had himself overlaid them, to satisfy the demands of the king of Assyria: but after the destruction of the Assyrian army, we find that he "had exceeding much riches, and that he made himself treasuries for silver, and for gold, and for precious stones," c. 2 Chronicles 32:27. He was so rich, that out of pride and vanity he displayed his wealth to the ambassadors from Babylon. This cannot be otherwise accounted for, than by the prodigious spoil that was taken on the destruction of the Assyrian army. - L.

24. The healing of disease and the forgiveness of sin are combined as in Psalms 103:3; Matthew 9:2 ff., &c. To the Old Testament saints sickness was the proof of God’s displeasure and of sin unforgiven. Hence in the conception of the Messianic community, the abolition of sickness, the chief evil of life, is the indispensable pledge that guilt is taken away. Cf. Exodus 23:25.

And the inhabitant - The inhabitant of Jerusalem. Shall not say, I am sick - That is, probably, the spoil shall be so abundant, and the facility for taking it so great, that even the sick, the aged,

23, 24. Thy tacklings are loosed — By curious prophetic association again, the intuition of war galley and ship turns the mind back, as it were, to the wrecked Assyrian ship, which, with its broken