Isaiah 6

6:1 IN the year that king Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and 2 lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain 3 he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: 4 the whole earth is full of his glory. And the foundations of the thresholds were moved at 5 the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people 6 of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts. Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off 7 the altar: and he touched my mouth with it, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and 8 thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. And I heard the voice of the Lord, say- 9 ing, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said, Here am I; send me. And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but 10 perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their 11 heart, and turn again, and be healed. Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until cities be waste without inhabitant, and houses without man, and the land become 12 utterly waste, and the LORD have removed men far away, and the forsaken places be many 13 in the midst of the land. And if there be yet a tenth in it, it shall again be eaten up: as a terebinth, and as an oak, whose stock remaineth, when they are felled; so the holy seed is the stock thereof.

THIS chapter contains a vision and a prophecy of awful import. The prophet sees the Lord enthroned in the Temple and adored by the seraphim, at whose voice the house is shaken, and the prophet, smitten with a sense of his own corruption and unworthiness to speak for God or praise Him, is relieved by the applica- tion of fire from the altar to his lips, and an assurance of forgiveness, after which, in answer to the voice of God inquiring for a messenger, he offers himself and is accepted, but with an assurance that his labors will tend only to aggravate the guilt and condemnation of the people, who are threatened with judicial blind- ness, and, as its necessary consequence, removal from the desolated country; and the prophecy closes with a promise and a threatening both in one—to wit, that the remnant which survives the threatened judgments shall experience a repetition of the stroke, but that a remnant after all shall continue to exist and to experience God’s mercy. The chapter naturally falls into two parts, the vision (verses 1-8) and the mes- sage or prediction (verses 9-13). A.

The Temple vision has usually been held to describe the first call of Isaiah to his public work. Its date, the last year of Uzziah, is the earliest given. We learn from chap. 1:1 that Isaiah began to prophesy in that reign, and since he survived it full sixty years, its last year is a more probable date for his prophetic calling than any much earlier year. The first mission of Jeremiah was marked by the touch- ing of his lips in vision, and that of Ezekiel by an appearance of the cherubim. Here both features are combined. The analogy confirms the view that the words recount the first call- ing of Isaiah; and the question, Whom shall I send? further implies that he was now first set apart as the chosen messenger of God. Birks.

It was probably their similarity in subject to the preface in chap. 1 that made Isaiah place the prophecy contained in chaps. 2, 3, 4, and that of the unfruitful vineyard (chap. 5), before the account of his inauguration to his office. Thus far all is general. It is the usual lesson of the preacher—and the prophets were Israel’s preachers—Repent: for man is corrupt; but God merciful. But the vision of the Almighty on His throne ushers in one of the most remark- able of all Isaiah’s predictions—that contained in chaps. 7, 8, and 9:1-7; and the importance of this prophecy was apparently the reason why Isaiah placed in front of it his own solemn call. R. P. S.

We find fully revealed, in this interview be- tween the Eternal and His prophet, the three great ideas which were the sustaining powers of his ministry of sixty years. The first, God is holy, therefore His people Israel must be holy. Holiness is to be the unchangeable law of their national existence: “Holy, holy, holy,”

cry one to another, with subdued voice, the seraphim standing before the throne. And the sanctuary is shaken. Isaiah catches a sudden glimpse, terrible in its clearness, of his own and his people’s sin; he feels himself, as it were, struck dead at the sight. Hence the second thought: the nation is already too far gone in sin to be able to accept in earnest the appeals for reform addressed to them by the prophet on behalf of God. “They hear indeed, but do not understand.” In order to purify this people, whom God has already ceased to call My people, words are not sufficient; there must be a great national chastisement. “Lord, how long?” asks the prophet. “Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate,” is the Lord’s answer. But is that to be the end of the prophetic vision? No; and here is the third thought: as the metal comes forth from the crucible, reduced in size but purified, so, after the judgment which shall fall twice upon the people, there shall remain a holy remnant, the germ of the true people of God. “In it shall be a tenth, and it shall return and shall be eaten; as a teal tree, and as an oak whose substance is in them when they cast their leaves, so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof.” Thus, holiness as the law, chastisement as the means, and the holy remnant as the result; these are the three fundamental thoughts of this Divine dialogue, the foundation of the whole ministry of Isaiah. They sum up, if I may so say, the whole religious philosophy of the prophet; a philosophy evidently superior to mere human wisdom, and descending from that same Sinai whence came forth the law. Godet.

1-4. The prophet is represented as standing without and immediately before the Holy Place, near the great altar of burnt offering. The doors of entrance to the Holy Place and the veil separating it from the Holy of Holies were thrown wide open, so that the whole inner sanctuary was disclosed to his view. But now its mysterious symbols seemed to be transformed into glorious realities. The Holy of Holies appeared to him as the heaven of heavens. In place of the golden-burnished mercy-seat he saw a throne high and lifted up, of unutterable magnificence. Instead of the resplendent shekinah, the visible symbol of Jehovah, he beheld Jehovah Himself apparently in human form sitting in awfully refulgent majesty upon the throne, clad, after the manner of an ancient monarch, in a robe, the radiant folds of whose flowing train swept over and covered the pavement of the sanctuary. Surrounding this throned Glorious One, instead of the shining cherubim were seen flaming seraphim as His attendant ministers in the attitude of profound veneration, reverently engaged in His worship. These most exalted of created beings severally with two of their wings covered their faces, and with two their feet, thereby betokening their inability steadfastly to behold the glory of God, and the reverence and awe with which they were inspired by His immediate presence, while with the remaining two they were prepared to fly in quick, eager readiness to obey His will. And as thus they stood, with ardent devotion they hymned one to another in alternative responsive doxology, “Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah of hosts; filled is all the earth with His glory!” Then were the bases of the thresholds shaken with their loud acclaim, while the whole sacred edifice, suffused with the altar smoke, trembled with the immediate manifest presence of Jehovah. B.

1. I saw the Lord.** It has been a general opinion in all ages of the Church that in every such manifestation it was God the Son who thus revealed Himself. In John 12: 41 it is said to have been Christ’s glory that Isaiah saw and spoke of, while Paul cites verses 9 and 10 (Acts 28: 25, 26) as the language of the Holy Ghost. A.

2. “Each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet;” this is the seraph’s life of devotion. “And with twain he did fly;” this is his life of active service. If, then, God’s will is to be done by His people on earth as it is by His angels in heaven, there must enter into the spiritual life upon earth two great elements—devotion toward God and work for God. The ministry of angels is only half their life. The other half, which indeed makes their ministry glow with zeal, is their worship. And so it must be with God’s human servants. Our flying on God’s errands will be an unhallowed flight, if we do not first secretly adore Him in our hearts. A prayerless day of hard work, consecrated by no holy meditation, what a dull, plodding, tramping day is it! E. M. G.

3. Two of the Divine attributes form the theme of the seraphs’ hymn: God’s holiness as inherent in Himself, His glory as manifested in the earth. Holiness denotes fundamentally a state of freedom from all imperfection; a state, moreover, realized with such intensity as to imply not only the absence of evil, but antagonism to it. It is more than goodness, more than purity, more than righteousness; it embraces all these in their ideal completeness, but it expresses besides the recoil from everything which is their opposite. This is the sense which the word bears throughout Scripture. Driver.

The seraphim sing responsively to God, as thrice holy, supremely holy, and persevere without weariness in their adoration. But the words allude further to the three persons of the Godhead (John 17 : 11 ; Heb. 7 : 26 ; 1 John 2 : 20) and to the sacred name, including past, present, future time, as in their apocalyptic song, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come” (Rev. 4 : 8). Birks.—The allusion to the Trinity is the more probable because different parts of the chapter are referred in the New Testament to the three persons of the Godhead. A.—In this trisagion, this thrice-repeated “holy,” we have no more than a glimpse of the mystery. Yet it was a precious confirmation of the faith, when in a later day this mystery was fully made known, to discover that the rudiments of it had been laid long before in Scripture ; that first and last were there bound together the full unfolded flower of the New Testament shut up in the bud and blossom of the Old. Trench.

The doctrine of the Trinity rests upon the sure testimony of the Word of God, and is itself the primal foundation of the great facts of Christianity—atonement for sin by Divine sacrifice, and regeneration of the soul by Divine influence. Only a Divine Saviour could make atonement for sin ; only a Divine Spirit can give life to the soul dead in trespasses and sins. Hence the doctrines of atonement and regeneration rest upon the doctrine of the Trinity, and stand or fall with it. It is a doctrine of the New Testament more than of the Old. Nevertheless, it did not appear in the Christian Church as something altogether new, but by that law of development by which what is concealed in the Old Testament is laid open in the New. It pleases God by means of historic facts to communicate His eternal truth to the world. The doctrines of Scripture are given us mostly by historic mediation, and the facts of the Divine plan of redemption were essential to the full revelation of the doctrine of the Trinity, and the proper use of it for life and salvation. Still, there are numerous and clear intimations of this mystery in the Old Testament, and evident preparations for the revelation of it. Divine attributes are ascribed to the coming Messiah (Isa. 9 : 6 ; Jer. 23 : 6 ; 33 : 16 ; Micah 5 : 2) ; also frequent mention of the Spirit of God (Gen. 6 : 3 ; Ex. 31 : 3 ; 1 Sam. 16 : 13 ; Isa. 61 : 1 ; 63 : 10 ; 48 : 16). These passages, taken together, contain the Trinity germinantly. Robie.

The Trinity of our faith means a distinction of persons within one common, indivisible Divine nature. It implies, therefore, as its base that the Divine nature is one and indivisible. It excludes the notion of lords many and gods many. For this reason God revealed the essential oneness of His being first ; and it was only after Israel had, through many weary centuries and many bitter lessons, learned that truth, that Jesus did or could disclose to His disciples the “name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” And when you see at the same time how such Hebrews as John, Paul and Peter came to revere Jesus the Son of God as equally to be worshipped with the Father, and received the invisible Spirit who came at Pentecost as no less truly a Divine person, you must feel that this new revelation of a Trinity in God left quite unaltered their old faith that God is one. It was a mighty and a blessed addition to their knowledge of Jehovah ; but it did not shake what they knew before—“Hear, O Israel : Jehovah our God is one Jehovah.” Dykes.

He who goes about to speak of the mystery of the Trinity, and does it by words and names of man’s invention, talking of essences and existences, hypostases and personalities, may build a tabernacle in his head, and talk something he knows not what ; but the renewed man that feels the power of the Father, and to whom the Son has become wisdom, sanctification and redemption, in whose heart the love of the Spirit of God is shed abroad—this man, though he understands nothing of what is unintelligible, yet he alone truly understands the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Jeremy Taylor.

The doctrine of the Trinity is not a mere speculative mystery. Each of the Divine persons has His office in the economy of redemption, and this gives us an idea of the grandeur and dignity of that redemption, in the economy of which there is such a co-operation ; the Father devising it, the Son executing, the Spirit applying. And the persons are distinctly named in the New Testament, probably that we may be able the more clearly to trace the plan. . . . Could the whole theory of the Incarnation be laid open to our view, no additional force would be given to those motives to fervent gratitude and devotedness to the service of our Redeemer which the mere fact is adapted to inspire. The practical influence is not at all impaired, but rather heightened, by the speculative difficulties which attend it, because they result merely from its ineffable grandeur. The same may be said with respect to the doctrine of the Trinity. The distinct parts assigned to the three Divine persons exhibit the beautiful harmony of the plan of redemption: the Father sending His Son, the Son executing His Father’s will, the Holy Spirit sanctifying the people of God by dwelling in their hearts. These truths are not less practical because of the mystery which attends the doctrine. We are as able to adore the grace of the Father, the love of the Son, the communion of the Holy Spirit—to value the distinct agency of the several persons in the work of our salvation, as if we could perceive the theory of this unspeakable mystery. R. Hall.

Thus the doctrine of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost satisfies the deepest wants of the soul. Never so much as in prayer do we feel our need of the presence and aid of the Holy Spirit; never so much as in prayer do we see the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, and rejoice in His mediation with the Father. The doctrine is essential to Christian life and worship. It is the one faith in which we are baptized, and in which we are blessed. And the whole Church is one, now and forever, in the unity of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Robie.

To eye God in all our comforts, and observe the smiling aspects of His face when He dispenses them to us; to eye Him in all our afflictions, and consider the paternal wisdom that instructs us in them—how would this increase our mercies and mitigate our troubles! To eye Him in all His creatures, and observe the various prints of the Creator’s glory stamped upon them—with how lively a lustre would it clothe the world, and make everything look with a pleasant face! What a heaven were it to look upon God, as filling all in all; and how sweetly would it, erewhile, raise our souls into some such sweet seraphic strains, “Holy, holy, holy—the whole earth is full of His glory.” To eye Him in His providences, and consider how all events are with infinite wisdom disposed into an apt subserviency to His holy will and ends—what difficulties would hence be solved! what seeming inconsistencies reconciled! and how much would it contribute to the ease and quiet of our minds! To eye Him in His Christ, the express image of His person, the brightness of His glory, and in the Christian economy, the Gospel revelation and ordinances, through which He manifests Himself; to behold Him in the posture wherein He saves souls, clad with the garments of salvation, girt with power, and apparelled with love, travelling in the greatness of His strength, mighty to save; to view Him addressing Himself to allure and win to Him the hearts of sinners, when He discovers Himself in Christ, upon that reconciling design, makes grace that brings salvation appear; to behold Him entering into human flesh, pitching His tabernacle among men, hanging out His ensigns of peace, laying His trains, spreading His net, the cords of a man, the bands of love; to see Him in His Christ ascending the cross, lifted up to draw all men to Him; and consider that mighty love of justice and of souls, both so eminently conspicuous in that stupendous sacrifice; here to fix our eyes looking to Jesus, and behold in Him, Him whom we have pierced; to see His power and glory as they were wont to be seen in His sanctuaries; to observe Him in the solemnities of His worship, wherein He holds communion with His saints when He seats Himself amid them on the throne of grace, receives their addresses, dispenses the tokens and pledges of His love—into what transports might these visions put us every day! Hone.

The whole earth is full of His glory. This prophecy of the far-spreading glory of the Messiah’s reign, considered as coming from the lips of the seraphim, those burning messengers from before the heavenly throne, has exquisite beauty, sublimity and force. It opens the vista of Messiah’s future kingdom as seen with their eye and from their point of view. No wonder such a theme should touch their lips with hallowed fire, and enkindle the utmost ardor of their souls! H. C.

4. In the dedication by Solomon the song of praise was the signal for the cloud of glory to fill the house, and so also in the Apocalypse. As fire from heaven was the sign of His acceptance of earthly sacrifice, so here this cloud, “dark with excessive bright,” is the sublime response to the worship of the seraphim. What nobler answer could be given to their adoration than fresh tokens of the unsearchableness of His glory? Birks.

5-8. We have here the very same elements upon which the inner life of every Christian rests: the holiness of God, the sin of man, the Divine reconciliation. Every Christian feels himself related to Isaiah when he is conscious that the majesty of the holy God brings death to the sinner, and that only after being pardoned he can be an instrument of service in the hands of God; and when, after receiving the atonement, he gives himself gladly and freely to the service of God. There is thus nothing here that is foreign or dark to us. Auberten.

5. Then said I, Woe is me.** He is not lifted up that he should be honored with such a vision of God; but, on the contrary, struck with humble, holy fear—I am undone! This is much of the exercise of souls admitted nearest to God, even this astonishment and admiration that such as they should be regarded and raised to that height and holy fear in a sense of their unholiness. Leighton.

It is not of the inferiority of the human mind and of the cloudless height and power of the Divine mind that Isaiah is here led to think, but of his own sinfulness and of God’s holiness. The moral humility ever goes lower than the intellectual. A sense of sin brings us down more than a sense of ignorance. . . . Isaiah hears the angelic antiphone, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;” and the pureness, and truth, and equity, and justice, and love, and faithfulness of God, thus expanded and revolved before the prophet’s thoughts, lead him to ponder, on the principle of contrast, his own ways, and his own heart, and he exclaims, “Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” Stoughton.—The sense of sin continued and increased in power through the whole of Paul’s Christian life. It wrung out from his soul the threefold expression, ever increasing in intensity: “I am not worthy to be called an apostle;” “I am less than the least of all saints;” “I am the chief of sinners.” The last of the three is the climax and consummation of all. It goes deeper than his apostolic office, deeper than his church-membership, into the very roots of his character, and into his personal relationship as a sinner to Christ. He never counted himself to have attained the end of his calling; he never thought himself perfect; he was always burdened with a body of sin and death, from which, till the end of life, he longed to be delivered. It was this increasing sense of his own unworthiness that made the sufficient grace of Christ so sweet and precious to him, filled his preaching with the essence of the Gospel, and fired it with an unquenchable zeal. Anon.

The King, the Lord of hosts. The same Spirit which displayed this glorious vision to Isaiah has given the interpretation of it by the Evangelist John. John tells us that Christ was that Jehovah whom the entranced prophet saw upon His throne; whose train filled the temple; whose praises were the theme of the seraphic song; whose glory fills the universe. According to the evangelist, it was Christ’s glory that Esaias saw; and to Him whose glory he saw the prophet gives the name of Jehovah, and the worshipping angels gave the name of Jehovah God of Sabaoth. D. Horsley.

6,7. It was part of the same fire, which consumed the sacrifices, whereby the prophet’s lips were purged in the vision for the fulfilment of his high calling. His own place, in vision, was without in the altar court. The mention of the tongs is a further sign. The atonement was made by the sacrifices on the altar of burnt offering. The act of the seraph denoted the pardon of sin, because the wood was from this altar, where the blood of the sin-offerings was poured out. But it also implied the conveyance of prophetic inspiration, since his lips were now consecrated to God’s service with heavenly fire. Birks.—God touched his lips with a coal from the altar, and purified and consecrated him to bear His message, and then He told him that the people would not hear nor understand him. That anointed prophet, the grandest spirit that ever touched the strings of the prophetic harp, should preach to dull ears and to hard hearts. None the less was he to sow the truth of which the reaping would come by and by. He was to draw his inspiration from God, not from success. C. J. Vaughan.

7,8. This fire hath two effects: it works purity and activity, it takes away sin and puts in spirit and life for obedience; and so here thy sin is purged; and then, says he, Here am I; send me; and the former is effectual toward the latter; the more the soul is cleansed, the more alive and able it is made for service. A soul well cleansed from the love of sin, and the world, and self, is in a healthful temper, and goes nimbly to any work; outward discouragements and difficulties are then nothing. Other motives, or the mixtures of them, God may make use of sometimes, yet He sees within and knows what spring makes the wheels go, and He gives them their reward here, somewhat possibly of that they seek (success and credit and a name), but the after reward of faithful servants they need not look for in that work; for they receive their reward, and can they expect more? Many an Here am I comes from other incentives than an altar coal; and so they may burn and shine awhile, but they soon consume and die out in a snuff; the heavenly altar fire alone keeps in and returns to heaven, where it was kindled. This, then, is to be sought for by all that offer any service to God, a readiness from love. Leighton.

8. Jerome’s explanation of the plural, as implying a plurality of persons in the speaker, is approved by Calvin. This explanation is the only one that accounts for the difference of number in the verb and pronoun—“whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” A.—“I” in the first form of the question becomes “us” in the second. There should be some good ground for this close relationship. None has ever been assigned; it is safe to say that none can be more plausible and probable than that which assumes a reference to the trinity of persons in the one God. This view has the endorsement of both John and Paul. H. C.

The Lord of hosts was communing with His child. The solemn voice was unmistakable, “Whom shall I send to save them?” He bowed himself in the dust and cried, “Send me.” Through the long half century of his ministry that hour of his self-consecration seemed never to pass away. For the thought of Jehovah’s presence in that sanctuary was ever the material stay on which he leaned for rest when his spirit was worn and weary. That hour’s penetrating gaze into the things of God and of men was but the entrance on a life of constant watching and study. The same sense of Divine communion was ever the spring of his great confidence as he preached. A. Duff.

Whom shall I send, and who will go? The double form of the question means that God’s commission is offered for the acceptance of hearts that are smitten by His love, and that He calls for volunteers, not for pressed men. God’s commission is to every one of us. God’s voice sounds to me by the very possession of His truth and by all the faculties that I have for the communicating of it; if I have got it, and if I can do anything to spread it, there is the obligation. Most of all, if I have Christ for my Saviour, that makes it a crime in me if I do not carry Him, somehow, to other people. A. M.

Every impulse and stroke of missionary power on earth is from the heart of Christ. If there are activity, free giving, ready going, a full treasury, able men who say, “Here am I, send me,” it is because through all the organization Christ lives and His personal Spirit works. There is no other possible spring for that enthusiasm. F. D. H.

Every man has his proper gift of God—every man, be he ever so humble, ever so retired and relatively insignificant. We shall find our special gift when we are willing to see it in God’s light, when, with the simplicity of a child, we are ready to say, “What am I, and what wilt Thou have me to do?” God knows our gift and He wishes that we should know it, and He will lead us into the knowledge of it when we are willing to use it, not for present ease of advancement, but for His glory and the good of others. J. Drummond.

9,10. Though his lips have been touched with fire from God’s altar, he is not to expect the general repentance of the people. His burning words would kindle no worthy response in their hearts. They would hear, constantly and repeatedly, and not understand. They would see his warnings fulfilling themselves before their eyes, and be blind to that fulfilment. With stern irony they are told to persevere in this deafness and blindness. In the same way the prophet is taught what would be the direct result of his own labors. His words would leave the people, in general, more hardened; yet knowing this, he was to teach them and to warn them still. The foreseen abuse of God’s messages is not always a reason why they should be withheld. Even the Gospel itself is “unto God a sweet savor of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish.” And though God, who cannot be tempted of evil, Himself tempts no man, yet the perverseness of the ungodly can never disappoint His counsel; and their foreseen guilt and folly will minister at length to the brighter display of His infinite holiness, and perfect love. Birks.

9,10. These verses are referred to in at least six passages in the New Testament (Matt. 13:14; Mark 4:12; Luke 8:10; John 12:40; Acts 28:26; Rom. 11:8). Our Lord’s use of it in Matthew, Mark and Luke was entirely in harmony with its drift and purpose as it stands here in Isaiah—i.e., illustrative of that judicial blindness to which God leaves sinners who resist His Spirit and set at naught His merciful endeavors to enlighten and save them. The phraseology of Matthew (13:14) and of Paul (Acts 28:26) is slightly modified from that of Isaiah. It is not, “Shut thou their eyes,” but “their eyes have they closed.” This change makes God’s permissive and judicial agency less prominent, and the sinner’s own voluntary agency more prominent. The latter agency Isaiah most fully and surely implies, and the former, neither Matthew nor Paul would exclude. It should be noted that these apostles, Matthew and Paul, quote from the Septuagint, which reads, “The heart of this people has become gross; with their ears they hear heavily” (in dulness) “and their eyes have they shut lest they should see with their eyes,” etc. This is entirely correct in sentiment, yet does not bring out in its full strength the Divine agencies in withdrawing His Spirit and giving up self-hardened sinners in judgment to their own free and guilty choice of rebellion and death. It puts this guilty choice and this persistent refusal of the sinner in the foreground as facts never to be ignored. And rightly. The endorsement of this view by our Lord, as in Matthew (13:14), and by Paul (Acts 28:26) may be taken as a timely suggestion and caution against overstraining the Divine agency in the judicial hardening of the persistent sinner. It would be ineffably revolting to give it such a construction as would ignore God’s love and pity for even the guiltiest sinner, or His sincere and earnest desire that they would, any and all, turn from their sins and live. H. C.

The system of this world depends, in a way unknown to us, both on God’s providence and on human agency. Every event, every course of action has two faces; it is Divine and perfect, and it belongs to man and is marked with his sin. And it is a peculiarity of Holy Scripture to represent the world on its providential side; ascribing all that happens in it to Him who rules and directs it as it moves along, tracing events to His sole agency or viewing them only so far forth as He acts in them. Thus He is said to harden Pharaoh’s heart, and to hinder the Jews from believing in Christ; whereby is signified His absolute sovereignty over all human affairs and courses. Newman.

It is ever so, and ever must be. There are shut souls, that having eyes will not see, and having ears will not hear, though the vision be open, and the voice as the voice of many waters, and of a great thunder, and of harpers harping with their harps. None the less do the Eternal Truth and the Eternal Way stand fast and offer themselves in mercy inexhaustible to the needy heart of “whosoever will.” . . . Glories of heaven and earth, grander than telescopes ever pierced among the stars, or hammers ever uncovered in the rocks, pass by, and there is no vision to behold them. Quick minds, but dull affections! Full understandings and empty hearts! Spiritual things not seen for want of spiritual senses! “O fools and slow of heart to believe” all that God’s prophets, God’s angels, God’s Scriptures have spoken! F. D. H.

There is a way of blindness by hardening the heart. Let us not conceal this truth from ourselves. God blinds the eye, but it is in the appointed course of His providential dealings. If a man will not see, the law is he shall not see; if he will not do what is right when he knows the right, then right shall become to him wrong, and wrong shall seem to be right. F. W. R.

—God, who punishes sin with death, sometimes punishes sin with sin. At a certain stage in the sinner’s dreary downward course the Lord hardens his heart. God is not responsible for his sin; but when he has repelled the voice of conscience, and the warning of his Bible, and the entreaties of friends, then grace is withdrawn from him, and sin puts on a judicial character, and is at once sin and punishment. Abp. Thomson.

The process of heart-hardening is no mystery, no miracle enacted by Almighty power, but a natural process begun, carried on, and completed by the sinner himself and the sinner alone. And it is a continuous process. No soul ever reached at once that state of immovable feeling, of active opposition to God which is called a hardened heart. It is, in accordance with the law of the spiritual nature, produced simply by repeated neglect of those passive impressions made upon the heart by the influences of God’s truth and Spirit. B.

11,12. The prophet’s words are no mere curious inquiry, but a sorrowful complaint. So Jer. 12:4, “How long shall the land mourn for the wickedness of them that dwell therein?” And the beloved Daniel, “How long shall be the vision of the transgression of desolation” (Dan. 8:13)? And the souls under the altar, “How long, O Lord, faithful and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” It is the longing of the faithful, in every age, to look beyond the dark clouds of sin and sorrow to the close of the mystery of God, the times of restitution of all things, and to the full victory of redeeming power and love. The answer declares how complete the judgment will be. Not the cities only, but their separate houses; not only the town, but the country, will be dispeopled. They shall be exiled, not to near districts, whence they might soon return, but far away; and there would be a long-lasting desolation. The warning plainly extends beyond the nearer Assyrian troubles to the captivity of Babylon. And as the reproof was applied anew by Paul to the Jews at Rome, so the words have been fulfilled, even more strikingly, in the wars of Vespasian and Titus, and the dispersion and desolation which lasts even to the present time. So wide in their range are His messages, with whom a thousand years are as a single day. Birks.

The cities are “without inhabitant,” the houses are “without man,” the land is “utterly desolate,” judgment has come upon it all, far and near; in a word, the whole of Bashan and