Isaiah 64

That the mountains might flow down at Thy presence. The idea here is, that the presence of Jehovah would be like an intense burning heat, so that the lofty mountains would melt and flow away. It is a most sublime description of His majesty, and is one that is several times employed in the Bible. Thus in relation to His appearance on Mount Sinai, in the song of Deborah (Judg. 5 : 4, 5) :

The earth trembled and the heavens dropped, The clouds also dropped water. The mountains melted from before Jehovah, Even Sinai from before Jehovah, the God of Israel.

So Ps. 97 : 5 :

The hills melted like wax at the presence of Jehovah,

At the presence of Jehovah [the God] of the whole earth.

So also in Micah 1 : 3, 4 :

And will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth,

And the mountains shall be molten under Him,

As wax before the fire,

And as the waters pour down a precipice.

—Barnes.

Since the judgment of the flood God has withdrawn into heaven in order henceforth to reveal Himself from thence in judgment and blessing. It cannot, however, remain so. All human aspiration henceforth unites in the sigh : “Oh, that Thou wouldest rend the heavens and come down.” The end toward which history now strives is that God shall again make His abode among men. “The Shechinah,” says an old Midrash, “abode originally here below ; after Adam’s fall it withdrew ever deeper and deeper into heaven, and with Abraham began its gradual return.” We know wherein this return of God to man culminated. Viewed from this elevation the post-diluvian history of redemption appears as a road, now ascending and now descending, which on the whole leads ever higher, and in the end reaches the summit. Delitzsch.

3. The plea is, that God had appeared wonderfully for His people formerly and “Thou hast,” therefore “Thou wilt,” is good arguing at the throne of grace. They plead what He had done for His people Israel in particular when He brought them out of Egypt. H.

4. The more easy and natural translation is : “From of old men have not heard, nor have they perceived through the ear, nor hath the eye seen a God besides Thee who will do so for one waiting upon Him.” The sense is, “No other God has been heard of or seen since the world began who will do such things for His waiting people ; none who has such power to do ; none who has such a heart to do ; none who has shown Himself in fact so mighty to save.” This thought comes in here, inspiring confidence in regard to the prayer just offered. Paul (1 Cor. 2 : 9) uses a part of the language of this verse to express the fact that certain great truths of the Gospel had remained unknown, a mystery, until Christ’s coming. H. C.

Men have not heard nor seen what God has prepared for those that wait for Him. Observe the character of God’s people ; they are such as wait for Him in the way of duty, wait for the salvation He has promised and designed for them. Observe where the happiness of this people is bound up ; it is “what God has prepared for them,” what He has designed for them in His counsel, and is in His providence and grace preparing for them, and preparing them for ; what He has “done” or “will” do ; so it may be read. It is all that goodness which God has “laid up for them that fear Him” and “wrought for them that trust in Him.”

5. “Thou meetest him that rejoices, and works righteousness ; meetest him with that good which Thou hast prepared for him” (verse 4), “and dost not forget those that remember Thee in Thy ways.” We are here told what we may expect from God, if we thus attend Him in the way of duty : “Thou meetest him.” This speaks the friendship, fellowship, and familiarity to which God admits them ; He meets them, to converse with them, to manifest Himself to them and to receive their addresses. It denotes likewise His freeness and forwardness in doing them good ; He will “prevent them with the blessings of His goodness,” will “rejoice to do good” to them that “rejoice in working righteousness,” and wait to be gracious to those that wait for Him. He meets His penitent people with a pardon, as the father of the prodigal met his returning son. He meets His praying people with an answer of peace, while they are yet speaking (chap. 65 : 24). H.

6,7. Again the prophet, speaking for the faithful few, confesses and deplores the prevailing wickedness of the nation. Almost literally, their sins had been a tornado to sweep the nation away. The most fatal fact in their condition was that no men of prayerful interceding spirit remained. There was no one who roused himself up to take strong hold upon God in prayer. H. C.

6. “As filthy rags.” The works of the flesh and of Pharisaic pride are here meant, not those fruits of the Spirit which are “an odor of a sweet smell, acceptable to God through Christ.” So Vitringa well remarks: “This saying, against the scope of the prophet, is often applied by unskilful interpreters to the acts of the faithful through the grace of the Spirit, because of some adherent imperfection, and even in public prayer they most absurdly obtrude this upon God. It is far otherwise. The acts of the regenerate, done in faith through the Spirit, are sacrifices well-pleasing to God. How have those who so interpret destroyed the true aspect of Christianity! The utmost humility becomes us before God, and to renounce our own strength is deserving; but the work of God in us ought to receive its own due praise.” Birks.

A Chinese convert once said: “How can a man trust in his own righteousness? It is like seeking shelter in his own shadow; we may stoop to the very ground, and the lower we bend we still find that our shadow is beneath us. But if a man flee to the shadow of a great rock or a wide-spreading tree, he will find shelter from the noonday sun. That rock, that tree is Christ.” Medhurst.

Thou canst never pay God, nor discharge the least of thy debts forever. Thou canst not possibly do it by any duties or services in this life; for whatsoever thou dost is either required or not required. If it be not required, it will be so far from being a satisfaction for thy sins that it will be an addition to them, and a piece of will-worship, which will meet with that sad greeting at the last day, “Who hath required these things at your hands?” If it be required, it is no more than thou owest to God before, and if thou hadst never sinned wert obliged to pay it. Bp. Hopkins, 1690.—His special work, the work of redemption and sanctification of our race through the Son of His love, presupposes nothing less than that humanity in itself must be considered as hopelessly lost; and whoever, therefore, thinks that his own virtue can wholly or partially save him, declares, in other words, God’s work to be superfluous. “If righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain” (Gal. 2 : 21). Thus we become on all sides not merely disposed, but constrained, to set our seal to the humbling declaration of Paul; and nowhere can we find an outlet save in the direction of Golgotha. How mournfully foolish, then, the pride which exalts itself on account of its own works and merits. Van O.

Fade as a leaf. The human race is a tree of life, rooting itself far back in the life of God. We are all leaves of this tree of life, and “we all do fade as a leaf.” The race remains like the tree, the generations die like leaves. The earth is one mighty sepulchre. The city and the cemetery, the village and the graveyard, grow populous together. . . . Leaves fade because it is the nature and law of their being to fade. It is their true destiny to give place to other generations, to fall and render back their substance to the soil for the enriching of the tree. The leaf, having served the tree in its life, serves it with all it has to bestow in its death; and this reveals the real purpose and value of its existence. This also is the law of human life. God has given us our individual existence that we may add something to the welfare and progress of the human race; and our only real right to life is derived from the fact that we are of some use, that our life really does add something to the welfare of the world. Only by a life devoted to the good of the world can our personal welfare be attained. A leaf that does not serve the tree, as leaves were made to do, the tree will not nourish, the rains will not refresh, the sun will wither and destroy. So God has made our real welfare and value dependent upon that spirit and life by which we may be most useful to others. . . . The leaf dies an honorable death. It has served a great and good purpose in its life, and its monument is the strong and majestic tree, whose branches spread themselves over its grave like priestly hands extended in benediction. It has left behind an increase of vitality and strength to the tree. The color of death in the leaf is the color of sunset, all red and golden, and it is hard to tell whether the tree is more beautiful in the greenness of its life or in the gold and crimson of its dying leaves. A selfish, sinful life leads to a death uncolored with pleasant memories and glorified hopes. Only the Christian fades as the leaf, leaving good behind to all with whom he has lived, and dying naturally, gently, happily, in the glorious light of hope. W. R. Brooks.

The fading leaf is not the symbol of death, but of life at its heights of power and fulness of promise. The coloring of autumn leaves is of the same nature as the coloring of fruit. In the latter it indicates the perfection of the seeds. It is the work of perfection. All noble vitality is rich in tone—not raw, but ripe. No relation is more intimate and Divine than that which exists between the beauty of holiness and the holiness of beauty, and this is best exemplified by the leaf fading at the culminating moment, when the brightest tints and richest coloring express the ripest life. In the widely golden splendor of the autumn days old age itself seems a benediction. How inspiring and beautiful is a Christian old age! Before its wonderful state of ripeness, out of which at any moment the flower of immortality may break, we linger with loving reverence. They come to their last hour like the leaf, like the mellow fruit which gather into themselves the entire life of the tree, all the dew and the sunshine of summer, and giving up to heaven the priceless wealth of hues, thence derived, at last bend and then break the branch from which they hang. So it is not death that makes it fade, but excess of life; life pressing up from a lower to a higher plane. It is the passing shadow between faith and sight, hope and fruition, transient and transparent as the last filmy, fleecy cloud that veils for a moment the full splendors of the sunrise. G. W. Miller.

7. “There is none that stirs up himself to take hold of God.” To pray is to “take hold of God,” by faith to take hold of the promises and the declarations God has made of His good will to us, and to plead them with Him; to take hold of Him as of one who is about to depart from us, earnestly begging of Him not to leave us; or of one that is departed, soliciting his return; to take hold of Him as he that wrestles takes hold of him he wrestles with; for the seed of Jacob wrestle with Him, and so prevail. But when we “take hold on God,” it is as the boatman with his hook takes hold on the shore, as if he would pull the shore to him, but really it is to pull himself to the shore; so we pray, not to bring God to our mind, but to bring ourselves to His. Those that would take hold of God in prayer, so as to prevail with Him, must stir up themselves to do it; all that is within us must be employed in the duty (and all little enough), our thoughts fixed and our affections flaming. In order hereunto, all that is within us must be engaged and summoned into the service. H.

8. Instead of relying upon any supposed merits of their own, they appeal to their very dependence upon God as a reason why He should have mercy on them. A.—Here, as in chap. 63:16, “Our Father” looks rather to His spiritual than to His physical creatorship, recognizing God not so much as the Author of our physical being as the Saviour of our souls from sin by His regenerating grace and by His spiritual power generally. That we are as clay and the Lord God our potter, illustrates in figure the same great truth, God’s effective and indispensable agency in every conversion and in all the spiritual life that ever exists in fallen human souls. Elsewhere—e.g., Isa. 29:16 and 45:9, this figure of the potter and his clay is used to set forth the perverseness of human guilt and folly in denying God’s creatorship and man’s consequent moral responsibility to his Maker; while in Jer. 18:6 and Rom. 9:20, 21, the same figure illustrates a like spirit in man toward God contemplated as the providential Ruler and Disposer of the destinies of nations. In the passage before us, the special point is, God working in man morally and spiritually toward and unto his regeneration and salvation. These precious relations of spiritual children are used here as a ground of plea with God for sustaining mercy. H. C.

Though Thou hast corrected us, yet Thou hast not cast us off; foolish and careless as we are, poor and despised, and trampled upon as we are by our enemies, yet still “Thou art our Father;” to Thee therefore we return in our repentance, as the prodigal arose and came to his father; to Thee we apply ourselves by prayer; from whom should we expect relief and succor but from our Father? It is the wrath of a Father that we are under, who will be reconciled, and not “keep His anger forever.” H.—How will God perform the part of a Father? In allowing us full leave to come to Him in all our necessities (Gal. 4:6). In supplying all our wants (Matt. 6:26). In pitying our miseries (Ps. 103:13). In disciplining and treating us with much indulgence, and wisdom, and care (Heb. 12:10). In providing able guardians for us (Heb. 1:14). In laying up an inheritance for us (Luke 12:32). T. Manton.

9. This is the application of the argument presented in the foregoing verse, the actual prayer founded on the fact there stated. A.—“Neither remember iniquity forever against us.” They do not expressly pray for the removal of the judgment they were under; as to that they refer themselves to God. They pray that God would be reconciled to them, and then they can be easy whether the affliction be continued or removed: “Be not wroth to extremity, but let Thine anger be mitigated by the clemency and compassion of a Father.” They pray that they may not be dealt with according to the desert of their sin; “Neither remember iniquity forever.” Such is the evil of sin, that it deserves to be remembered forever; and this is that which they deprecate, that consequence of sin, which is forever. H.

12. Wilt Thou for these (things) restrain Thyself, oh Jehovah, wilt Thou keep silence and afflict us to extremity? This is simply another application of the argument by way of an importunate appeal to the Divine compassions. Self-restraint and silence, as applied to God, are common figures for inaction and apparent indifference to the interests and especially the sufferings of His people. The question is not whether God will remain silent in spite of what His people suffered, but whether the loss of their external advantages will induce Him to forsake them. The question, as in many other cases, implies a negation of the strongest kind. The destruction of the old theocracy was God’s own act, and was designed to bring the Church under a new and far more glorious dispensation. How the loss of a national organization and pre-eminence was to be made good is fully stated in the following chapter. A.

Thus closes this chapter of great tenderness and beauty. It is a model of affectionate and earnest entreaty for the Divine interposition in the day of calamity. With such tender and affectionate earnestness may we learn to plead with God! Thus may all His people learn to approach Him as a Father; thus feel that they have the inestimable privilege in the times of trial of making known their wants to the High and Holy One. Thus when calamity presses on us; when as individuals or as families we are afflicted; or when our country or the Church is suffering under long trials, may we go to God and humbly confess our sins, and urge His promises, and take hold of His strength, and plead with Him to interpose. Thus pleading, He will hear us; thus presenting our cause, He will interpose to save us. Barnes.