Isaiah 40

Isaiah 40:1-4

1. THUS faith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have + holden to subdue nations before him: and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two-leaved gates, and the gates shall not be shut. 2. I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron. 3. And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayst know, that the LORD which call thee by thy name, are the God of Israel. 4. For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have sirnamed thee, though thou hast not known me.

Cyrus was the type of the great Redeemer, and in his deliverance of the captive Jews, prefigured the greater redemption which Jesus should obtain for his people of all nations: more than two hundred years before the event came to pass, we have him particularly named and pointed out, and his great conquests described, which, through the mighty hand of God upon him, he was enabled to obtain ever kingdoms which opened much more powerful than his own, and which opened a way at last to him, in conjunction with the Persians, for the conquest of Babylon. We have here.

1. The conquests he should obtain: Nations are subdued before him, and kings submit to his yoke; the stronger cities cannot resist his arms, nor the most difficult pastes stop his march, God goes before him, and therefore resistance is vain, v. 1, 2. The treasures of his enemies become his spoil, v. 3, and among them, those of Cressus, king of Lydia, the richest monarch of that age: and by these he was enabled to pursue his victories, to the final overthrow of the Babylonian monarchy.

2. God’s design in this was purely to serve his Israel. Cyrus himself was a stranger to the true God, and meant no doubt his own grandson and glory alone; but it was for Jacob’s sake God had raised him up, and ordained him to be such a conqueror, in order that he might be their deliverer, v. 4. Note, (1.) In all God’s providences, in the revolutions of Bums and kingdoms, there is wheel within wheel; and God hath purposes to answer for the good of his people, which the great agents employed in these things little think of. (2.) Christ is exalted to the throne for the sake of his Israel, hath all power given him, and all the unfeasible riches of grace to believe,

therefore they may expect at his hands every mercy and blessing their can need.

5. ¶ I am the LORD, and ’there is none else, there is no God besides me: ‘I girded thee, though thou hast not known me: 6. That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the earth, that there is none besides me, I am the LORD, and there is none else. 7. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. 8. Drop down, ye heavens from above, and let the stars pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together: I the LORD have created it. 9. We unto him that striveth with his maker: let the potterest serve with the potterest of the earth: ‘shall the clay lay to him that fasteneth it, What makes thou or thy work, He hath no hands? 10. We unto him that faith unto his father, What begotten thou? or to the woman, What hath thou brought forth.

Isaiah 40:3-8

At this chapter begins the latter part of the prophecy of this book: the conclusion of the former chapter formed a dark cloud over Pathis and its pricels; but before God sent his people into captivity, he furnished them with precious promises for their support and comfort in their trouble; and we may well imagine of what great use to them this gracious prophecy was in that slaying and dark day, and how much it helped to dry up their own by the rivers of Babylon. Much of Christ and gospel grace we meet with in the foregoing part of this book, but in this latter part we shall find much more; and as if it were designed for a prophesied summary of the New Testament, it begins with that which begins the giggles, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, chap. xli. 9. and concludes with that which concludes the book of the Revelation, the new heavens and the new earth, chap. xlvi. 22.

In this chapter we have, 1. Orders given to publish abroad the glad tidings of redemption, ver. 1, 2. 2. They glad tidings introduced by a voice in the wilderness, which gives affirmses that all abstractions shall be removed, ver. 3-5 and that though all creatures fail and fail, the word of God shall be gleeblight and accomplished, ver. 6-8. 3. A joyful prospect given to the people of God of the happiness which this redemption should bring along with it, ver. 9-11. 4. The sovereignty and power of that God magnified, who undertakes to work out this redemption, ver. 12-17. 5. Said therefore triumphed men, and idolaters apperciled with their folly, ver. 18-26. 6. A reproof given to the people of God for their fears and dissonances, and enough said in a few words to silence these fears, ver. 27-31. And we through patience and comfort of this scripture may have hope.

1. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, faith your God. 2. Speak ye + comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her + warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for the hath received of the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.

v. 1, 2. The conclusion of the prophet’s message in the former chapter spoke terror and conviction; the opening of this, joy and consolation: for though it be a needful severity to wound, it is the more pleasing part of our office to bind up the broken-hearted, and to preach the gospel of peace.

It would afford the pious Jews a beam of cheering hope amidst the evils that were expected, and support the fainting spirits of the poor captives, to have these great and precious promises for before them, and be assured, whatever they suffered, there was hope in the end. We have here,

1. The commission given: Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, faith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, or, to the heart of Jerusalem, and cry unto her. (1.) The persons addressed are my people; this is their character, they are choled, and faithful, and called. (2.) The person speaking, your God, your reconciled God in Jesus Christ, in whose love present and eternal his people are interested, and therefore may expect all that almighty poetry, boundless mercy, infinite wisdom, and unchangeable faithfulness can be below. (3.) The employment of God’s mindless is to comfort his people, who are often greatly dejected through affliction, temptation, corruption, and desertion. (4.) The order is repeated, and they are commanded not only to speak, but cry aloud; for though it be the privilege of God’s people to rejoice, and his will concerning them that they should be happy in him, yet they are apt to write better things against themselves, and scarce can be persuaded to receive the blessings God hath in force for them.

2. The mercies promised; and these are, (1.) The pardon of sin. Her iniquity is pardoned; however deep the die, and aggravated the guile, it is pardoned forethy, folly, for evils. The blood and righteousness of Jesus have obtained eternal redemption for us, and there is no more condemnation. (2.) Victory over all our enemies. Her warfare is accomplished: Christ, the captain of our salvation, hath vanquified for us sin, Satan, death, and hell; hath entered into the land of glory as a conqueror, to take possession for us, and we are already triumphant in our exalted head; and what he hath done for us, he will do in us. Though we have a warfare to maintain whilst we are in the body, against flesh and blood, corruption within, and the world without, and hence utmyth, and death threatens, yet by his grace we shall be more than conquerors, and for quickly all our enemies put under our feet. (3.) Sin hath marked of the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. God speaks as a tender parent; which love makes him think the corrections he had given his dear children beyond number: or rather the words ordinate the full satisfaction God hath taken of Christ our fingers, exacting from him to the uttermost the desert of our iniquities.

3. The voice of him that clash in the wilderness, Prepare ye the joys of the LORD, make througue in the desert a high, thy for our God. 4. Every valley shall be

4. 4. Heb. To the heart of, 7. Or, approtest one, 8. Pl. xli. 13, 9. Chap. lxi. 7. a. Mal. 10. 9. b. Isch. 1. 5. c. Luke 16. 4. d. Paul 1. 4. e. Ibid. 10. f. Pl. lcr18. IS A F & H. O, O then that bringed good tidings to Zion. Chap. II. 2. O, O then that bringed good tidings to Jerusalem. O, O good the Baboo. Chap. Iol. 1. 2. Rev. 1. 10. 14. O, O, on the behold, Iod. prop. 1. 2. 3. be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain. 5. And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mound of the LORD hath spoken it. 6. The worse fast, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? 7. All flesh is great, and all the goodliness thereof is as the blame of the field. 8. The great withers, the flower fadem; 9. because the Spirit of the LORD bloweth upon it; 10. the people is great. 11. The great withers, the flower fadem; but the word of our God shall stand for ever. The Scriptures of the New Testament have not left us uncertain whose voice this is which crieth in the wilterness. John, like the morning-Star, the harbinger of day, appears to usher in the Sun of righteousness, and to awaken, by his preaching, the Gods of sinners to turn these eyes towands the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world. 1. The cry is, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the deft of a high-way for our God. Jehovah, our God, here speaks us, as the glorious Redeemer, whose eternal godhead is hisened. Our hearts are a defeat, till his presence and love changes the dreary Icane. Where his footsteps tread, waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams of grace and confolation in the defeat. The preparation for him must be from him; and he that commands must give the bearing, say, the contrite heart, and dispose us to welcome him into our South. 2. Where Jesus comes, every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the crooked shall be made flesh, and the rough places plain. Such will be the effects of his green upon the souls of his people: those who were sunk into the lowest deep under the sense of guilt, shall be raised up by divine mercy and exalted: the proud, who in these own eyes before were high in concert of their own worth and excellency, shall be brought low, and acknowledge their sin and extensely: the crooked and rough ways of men of seventh month shall be made fresh, their errors removed, their corrupt pracsies achieved, and their hearts renewed in holiness. 3. The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, the Redeemer Jesus, the highpicks of his father’s glory, and the superb image of his sermon, and all flesh shall be it together; he being the universal Saviour, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles: for the month of the Lord hath spoken it, and therefore no jot or little of his promises shall fail. 4. A farther commission is given the preacher, and at his request he is instructed what to cry, v. 9—8, which may refer to the weakneck and impotence of the Bishonians, to detain the Jews in their captivity, when the Lord should write to save them; or more generally may be applied to all men, where the word of the gospel is preached, as an alarming motive to attend to the great and precious promises of a better world, seeing this is to lead and fading. All flesh is great, weak and withering, and all the penitentiary thereof in the favour of the field, which, though it looks more gay and beautiful, is as real and feeble. Such are all human gifts and greatness, and such the best works of man’s agitator, which however specious, quickly fade. The great wishman, the former fadem, because the Spirit of the Lord brought upon it; three drooping, dying, all our beauty and glory batguishes: health loses its bloom, our possessions fade away, and death closes the fours: or when this Spirit breathes upon us in contradice, our hell doings and duries appear poor and wretched; and those things on which we prided ourselves we count dung and loss, that we may win Christ. Surely the people is great, all people of every age, rank, and degree; the great withers, the flower fadem, such perishing things are all human excellence; but the word of our God shall stand for ever; and therefore when all besides parishes, and every earthly comfort or possession in death are for ever full, they who make the great and precious promises of the gospel their stay, will find, to their everlasting comfort, a persion which cannot fail them in the better world of glory. O, O then that bringed good tidings to Zion. Chap. II. 2. O, O then that bringed good tidings to Jerusalem. O, O, good the Baboo. Chap. Iol. 1. 2. Rev. 1. 10. 14. O, O, on the behold, Iod. prop. 1. 2. 3. O, O, on the behold, Iod. prop. 1. 2. 3. O, O, on the behold, Iod. prop. 1. 2. 3. O, O, on the behold, Iod. prop. 1. 2. 3. O, O, on the behold, Iod. prop. 1. 2. 3. O, O, on the behold, Iod. prop. 1. 2. 3. O, O, on the behold, Iod. prop. 1. 2. 3. O, O, on the behold, Iod. prop. 1. 2. 3. 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O Zion, that brought good tidings, when his ministry chiefly was exercised; or better, it may be rendered, O Zion that brought good tidings to Zion, as admitted on John the Baptist, and all the ministers of the gospel, whose office it is to proclaim the divine glosses and transcendent excellence of the Redeemer, in all his offices and undertakings, for the fal-

ration of sinners; yet they up to the high mountain, to the most public

places, such as the means of the Lord’s house. O Jerusalem, &c. or, O thou that bringeth good tidings to Jerusalem, left up

the voice with strength: left it up, he sat aforesaid at the opposition

and revilings of man, who would pernicate the preachers of the

gospel. Say unto the claim of Judah, where Christ appeared, Behold your God incarnates, the

prosealed Enormain!; a man, and yet the eternal Jehovah, come with the most joyful tidings that

can greet a sinner’s star, to proclaim pardon, grace, and salvation, freely and to the untermold.

2. His power and all-sufficiency are declared. Behold, your God shall come; that desire of all nations, and especially the glory of his Israel; he shall come with a strong hand, mighty to save his people, and punish his enemies: Or, against a strong one, to destroy the works of the devil, and break his harmful power in the hearts of men: and his own shall rule for him: tell-sufficient, and designing his own glory; or against him, the great enemy of souls, who must yield to this conqueror. Behold! with joy, ye people of God, his reward is with him, to become eternal life on as many as believe in him: and his word before him, the glorious work of redemption: he came fully acquainted with the steps necessary thereto, and perfectly able and willing for the undertaking. 3. His grace and love are tenderly displayed under the charative of a watchful Shepherd. He shall lead his flesh like a Sephard: his people not his sheep, bought at the price of his blood, and therefore with tenderall regard he feeds them in the green pallures of his ordinances; believes on them the waters of consideation; watches over them night and day, defending them from every danger; seeking them when frayed; and suffering none of them to be lost. He shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them as his before; as when the cold is ready to kill the new-cast lamb, or it is so weak that it cannot follow the dam, the Shepherd in his bosom bears and identifies it; so both Christ the lambs of his flock, pitying their weakness, helping their infirmities, and in the bosom of his love cherishing and throughening their flocks: and shall gently lead their men with young, whose circumstances are embarrassed, and trials difficult; he leads them gently as they are able, and safely, so that they do not miscarry, nor finally come short of the glory of God. Let the under-thepherds learn of their chief Shepherd to partake of his Spirit, and tread in his legs, consisting the weakneils and munitions to the wants of those sheep and lambs of his flock entrusted to their care. 12. ¶ Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand? and stated out known with a sign, and comprehended the deft of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? 13. Who hath directed the Spirit of the LORD, or being his counsellor hath taught him? 14. With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and thewed to him the way of underhanding? 15. Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small duft of the balance: behold, he taketh up the lifts as a very little thing. 16. And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beafts thereof sufficient for a burnt-offering. 17. All nations before him are so nothing, and they are counted in him less than nothing and vanity.

Isaiah 40:5-10

The design of God is rising up Cyrus, was to make his own power and glory to appear: therefore,

1. He asserts his own Godhead, and besides him there is no other: his works declare his universal dominion, light and darkness, good and evil, not the evil of sin, but of suffering, are all from him: and if Cyrus was so wonderfully strengthened for his conquests, the world must take notice to whom he stands—indebted; though he knew not the hand who supported him, in this prophetic word, it evidently appears the work was of God, v. 5, 6. Note, since prosperity and adversity both come from God, in both he is to be acknowledged, and our duty is to correspond with his designs.

2. A glorious prophecy is revealed, of the abundance of blessings, that by the incarnation of the Redeemer, should descend on the Israel of God. Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the stars pour down righteousness, or the righteous God, the Lord Jesus, who descending from above, as the rain waters the earth, would cause the souls of men to bring forth the276d. of grace and holiness: let the earth open; the barren hearts of men, that are like dead earth, till enslaved by the precious influences of the spirit of Jesus; and let them bring forth salvation, or the Saviour, and let righteousness spring up together; that righteousness which is the work of the incarnate Redeemer, and that salvation which is the issue of his work, of grace upon the soul: I the Lord have created it; the work is wholly Divine in the contrivance and execution of it, and our righteousness and salvation derived from him alone.

3. A wo is pronounced on the rebellion; either the enemies of God, who opposed his people’s deliverance, or the faithful Jews who deponent of it. Four worms of dust, as potterest of the earth, may shine with such other; but to contend with God, or find fault with him, is as absurd as for the clay to pretend greater wisdom than the potter, and unnatural as for the child to quarrel with his parents for having bepotent and brought him forth. God’s sovereignty, wisdom, justice, and goodness, in all his works and ways, are incontestable, and it is so wicked as foolish to find fault with or oppose them. Note, (1.) They who quarrel with God and his providences, only aggravate their own sufferings. (2.) Nothing can be a greater argument for entire resignation to the Divine will, than the consideration, what God is, and what we are; and we then act as business creatures, when, as clay in the hands of the potter, we are content to be just what our maker pleads.

4. Thus faith the LORD, the holy One of Israel, and his maker, Ask me of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command ye me. 12. ‘I have made the earth,’ and created man upon it: I, even my hands have stretched out the heavens, and all their hosts have I commanded. 13. I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways: ‘he shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives,’ not for price nor reward, faith the LORD of hosts. 14. Thus faith the LORD, ‘The labour of Egypt, and merchandise of Ethiopia, and of the Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over unto thee, and they shall be thine, they shall come after thee, in shame they shall come over: and they shall fall down unto thee, they shall make supplication unto thee, saying, Surely God is in thee, and there is none else, there is no god. 15. Verily thou art a God that hideth thyself, O God of Israel the Saviour. 16. They shall be ashamed, and also confounded all of them, they shall go to confession together that are makers of idols. 17. ‘But Israel shall be saved in the LORD with an

everv v Cha 13.

everlasting salvation: ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end. 18. For thou faith the LORD that created the heavens, God himself that formed the earth and made it, he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited, I am the LORD, and there is none else. 19. I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth: I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain: I the LORD speak righteousness, I declare things that are right.

Isaiah 40:11-19

We have here.

2. The encouragement God gives to his people to wait upon him in prayer, and to enquire concerning the great events he had foretold; either the restoration of his people from their captivity, or the glorious increase of the sons of God, which should be raided up by the preaching of the gospel, v. 11. The words also may be read interrogatively, in correspondence with the former verse, as implying a reproof to those who questioned the times of his dispositions.

3. God displays his own glorious power, in the creation of all things, as a ground to engage his people’s confidence, v. 11. and particularly mentions their deliverance by Cyrus; it is spoken of as already done, because determined in the Divine mind. God had raised him up in righteousness, and directed all his ways, and he should without price discharge them, and with his favour after them to rebuild Jerusalem, v. 13. This also may refer to the greater than Cyrus, that Michael whom God would raise up in righteousness, not for one nation only, but for all people, whose way he directed, to the full accomplishment of their salvation; and who, having by his own arm wrought out redemption for them, discharges them from all the earths of sin, and from the bondage of corruption, without money and without price.

4. He promises a great increase should be made to them, v. 14. Many of the neighbouring nations, probably on their return, became converts to their religion: or rather this refers to gospel times, when, by the word of truth, the Gentiles, Egyptians, Ethiopians, and Sabeats, gladly received Christ’s gentle yoke, and yielded themselves up to God, in the gospel of his dear Son.

5. Though sometimes in their afflictions he appeared to hide himself, yet he was still the God of Israel the services, ready in due time to appear for their help and confidation, v. 15. Note, (1.) There are dark days when God’s face is hid from his people, and they go mourning without the sun. (2.) God is not the less tender of us, or farther from our help, when he forms no forget us: if he hides himself, it is to engage us more earnestly to seek him.

6. The idolaters should be confounded and ashamed, v. 16. as the Babylonian were, when their gods, as well as themselves, went into captivity; and as was more abundantly seen when the gospel triumphed over the powers of darkness, and idolatry was generally abolished.

7. God promises his Israel an everlasting salvation. Israel shall be saved in, or as, the Lord; the work is his, and shall be fairly accomplished; not merely from Babylon, and the yoke of their captivity, but with an everlasting salvation through the Lord Jesus: ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end, or unto the ages of eternity: so permanent is that salvation which Christ by his blood and righteousness hath purchased, and will before on his chosen.

8. God gives his Israel the strongest assurances of the eternal salvation he promised them, v. 18, 19. He who made the heavens with such admirable wisdom, and fashioned the earth so fearfully and wonderfully, the only true God and Creator, v. 18. he speaks the never-lasting promise, not with a muttering low voice in secret, as the eracles of the heathens were delivered, but openly and publickly: and none of the seed of Jacob ever did, or shall seek his face in vain; he will ever hear and answer them; and his word of righteousness is a full ground for their truth and confidence, v. 19. Note, (1.) The word of promise is the great argument for the prayer of faith. (2.) If none seek God’s face in vain, how inexcusable are they who reject their own merces, and restrain prayer before God. (3.) Whatever God faith or doth is altogether righteous and true, and the faithful soul ever acquiesces therein.

Isaiah 40:12-17

Their words speak consolation to God’s people; they declare the infinite power and wisdom of their God. His captives in Babylon need not fear his ability to compel their deliverance; and his choftes now and ever may be afflicted, that he, who in his considerations is their Shepherd, suffers no illminution of his uncreated glory thereby. The description there given of our Redeemer is unutterably grand. Such his impensity, the vast abys of waters in him are but as a few drops in the hollow of his hand; the expanded heaven to him is but a spun; the ponderous globe but as a few particles of duft; and the mountain and hills, so prodigious as height and breadth, weighed in his coates, appear as grains of sand, and all nicely proportioned for the purposes they were designed to serve, v. 13. In his amusing work of creation he needed no advi-

fer, himself the fountain of wisdom, all receiving from him, none capable of

adding to him, v. 13. Before him the unbeheld nations are but as the drop of the bucket, or the small duft of the balance; so light, as not to turn the potted feale. The lifts he called up,

Isaiah 40:13

Lebanon with all its forests hewn down for fuel, and the innumerable herds which feed thereon sails for a sacrifice, utterly insufficient would they have been to rejoice the sins of men; as less than the incarnate Jehovah could offer the propitiation, 0.16. before whom all nations are as nothing, and, as if words were wanting to express their insignificance, they are counted less than nothing and vanity. Note, (1.) The more we fan of the Re-chanter’s greatness and glory, the more should our hearts be established in the fulness of his salvation. (2.) The less we are in our own eyes, and the more we fan our own vanity, as well as sin, the more shall we admire the infinite love and condemnation of our Immanuel.

18. ¶ To whom then will ye liken God? or what she hath will ye conquer unto him? 19. The workman mehesh a graven image, and the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold, and calleth silver chains. 20. He that is so impoverished, that he hath no oblatser, chocketh a tree; that will not rot; he feketh unto him a cunning workman? to prepare a graven image that shall not be moved. 21. Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth? 22. Is he that feterth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that thereforth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a teet to dwell in: 23. That bringeth the princes to nothing; he makeeth the judges of the earth as vanity. 24. ¶ Yea they shall not be planted, yea they shall not be sown, yea their flock shall not take root in the earth; and he shall also blow upon them, and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away as bubble. 25. To whom then will ye liken use, or shall he equal? faith the holy One. 26. Lath up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their holy by number: he calleth them all by nature, by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power, not one failed.

19. 18—20. The sin and folly of idolaters is here upbraided. 1. The abductory of idolatry is here described, 0. 19. 20. Mad in the pursuit of ideal vendues, the founder calls the figure; and, hardly of their riches, they deck the fanfifets image; it is overlaid with plates of gold, or adorned with chains of silver. Yea, he that cannot afford an offering will have a god, tho’ carved from a tree; and chasing the wood that is most incorruptible, that is fashioned into shape, and fixed in its place. Amazing denying! to pay adoration to a fanfifets log, or expect support from that which cannot stand without being faltered. Note, (1.) The idolatry that hath prevailed so universally as a frizing proof of the fall of man, and of the dreadful darkness of the human understanding. (2.) The continuance of this abominable practice in the church of Rome is among the strong proofs of her utter apology. (3.) Beware of Spiritual idolatry: to place in confidence in gold, or set up the creature above God in our afflictions, is equally criminal as to bow the knee to a flock or a shunt.

20. The prophet expenceses with them, Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth? from the visible creation the great Author’s eternal power and godsend might be clearly seen, and traditionally notices of his liking were handed down from the beginning; yet they degraded him into an image made like to corruptible man, and worshipped him not as God; so that they were without excuse, See Rom. i. 20. A glorious description then follows of the great Jehovah: On the circle of the heavens to fesseth, by his power and providence upholding all things; on this terrestrial ball he looks, an atom in the vast expands, and pony mortals appear but as grasshoppers or locusts before him. As a curtain he fbreches out the firmament, and in the heavens, hid from mortal eye, spread his radiant tabernacle, 0. 22. In his view earth’s mightiest princes shrink into nothing; their parlous, roumfets, power, are all vanity, 0. 23. What as their throats appear, and great as they form to worms like themselves, are breath of his displeasure bells them as gnads, and bends them from the earth as flubble before the whirlwind, 0. 24.

21. He directs them whether to turn their eyes, nor more at- prent to him God, the eternal Spirit, to any corporeal form. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created their things; and, in the expanded volume above, the legible characters of the Creator’s glory; that bringeth out their holy by number, marthall of an unbelieved; he witheth them all by means failed to their pollution and influence; by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in nature, not one failed; bound by omnipresent power, each in his several orbit performs his revolution, and also his

influence according to his Creator’s will. Since their God is so infinitely above the highest creatures, and all these the works of his hands, every representation of him by them must be a debasement of his glory.

27. Why fyyeft thou, O Jacob, and speaketh, O Israel, My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God? 28. ¶ Hath thou not known? hath thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. 29. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might, he increaseth strength, 30. Even the youths shall faint, and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. 31. But they that wait upon the LORD’s thrift? never thro’ strength: they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint.

28. 27—31. Their long captivity was ready to discourage the hearts of the Jews; and some of them, under the power of unbelief, were ready to conclude themselves forgeren and forsaken of God; for which the prophet here reprints them; and their rebate is deigned for our admonition, who are ready to faint when we are corrected of him.

29. He exposes their impotence and unbelief. Why fyyeft thou, O Jacob, and speaketh, O Israel, My way is hid from the Lord; he disregards my afflictions; and my judgment is passed over from my God? he hears not my appeals, nor gives me the expected redress. Note, (1.) Unbelieving suggestions arise often in the hearts of true Israelites. (2.) Such questions as our impatience utters, must be likened. Why and wherefore do we complain? God is not flock in his promise, but we are hasty in spirit. The within is for an appointed time. (3.) It argues our folly, as well as sin, to suppose God doth not see our distress, or is not able to relieve us.

30. Two things he reminds them of, which they ought to have known and considered: the infinite power, and unfractivable wisdom of God. Hath thou not known? after all the wonders displayed in behalf of his people; hath thou not heard, from the experience of past ages, as well as the oracles of truth, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fastesteth not, neither is weary? His power is never exhausted, nor his government enfeebled: he is from eternity undishangably the same, and, as the Creator of all, must needs be able to govern the work of his own hands; and therefore, however low his church may be reduced, it is not owing to weakness or weariness that he doth not appear for their relief. When his time is come, he will save them to the uttermost, nor can be at a loss for the means, when infinite wisdom is joined with almighty power; for there is no searching of his understanding; therefore we are bound at all times to trust him, and patiently expect the salvation of God.

31. When we do so, we are sure of being holpen. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might, he increaseth strength: such as, seeing their own Spiritual weakness and helplessness, apply to him, find him a very perfect help. When I am weak, then am I strong. Even the youths shall faint, and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: such as trust on an arm of flesh, and, self-confident, think they are able to contrate themselves from their difficulties, or, by the strength of their own endeavours, to overcome the power of their corruptions; these shall prove their insufficiency, and utterly fail: but they that want on the Lord, both for righteousness and strength, and in every trial and their case upon him, testified of their own infuriations, ignorance, and weakness, these shall renew their strength, be enabled to stand in the evil day, and supported under the bare burden of their temptations, afflictions, and corruptions: yea, more than supported, they shall mount up with wings as eagles, so fursh and strong; and their trials serve to strengthen their graces, and if their souls farther from earth, and nearer heaven: they shall run, and not be weary, in the way of God’s commandments, pleased in his happy service, and accounting it perfect freedom: and they shall walk, and not faint; though long their journey, and difficult the way, the everlasting arms of Jesus’s love shall bear them up, and bring them (see at last) to their eternal house. Hold out then, faith and patience!