Isaiah 58

Chap. LVIII. Ver. 1—14. The hypocrisy of the Jews reproved, with encouragement to the penitent.—This chapter might properly be called, The unmasking of hypocrisy, which it appears the Jews of Isaiah’s time carried to a height not to be exceeded by either Jews or Christians in any future age: though we fear it may not be without a parallel in both. To set apart a day professedly to God, and at the same time to convert it into a day of pleasure or business, is a crime here admirably described, and pointedly condemned: yet is not this exactly the way in which multitudes of Christians keep the sabbath? Still more similar is it to the case before us, when persons pretend to sanctify the sabbath themselves, and oblige their servants to devote the whole, or the far greater part of it,

to business or domestic labour. The reverse of this character as Isaiah sees God, unites that of sympathy and benevolence to the poor and the afflicted, of which we have many happy examples, in those who, without omitting their own religious duties, employ those spare moments which others devote to indolence or luxury, in visiting the sick, and assisting to instruct the ig-