THE TRUMPET TO THY MOUTH! - So God bids the prophet Isaiah, “Cry aloud, spare not, llft up thy voice like a trumpet” Isaiah 58:1. The prophets, as watchmen, were set by God to give notice of His coming judgments Ezekiel 33:3; Amos 3:6. As the sound of a war-trumpet would startle a sleeping people, s... [ Continue Reading ]
ISRAEL SHALL CRY UNTO ME, MY GOD, WE KNOW THEE - Or, according to the order in the Hebrew, “To Me shall they cry, we know Thee, Israel,” i. e., “we, Israel,” Thy people, “know Thee.” It is the same plea which our Lord says that He shall reject in the Day of Judgment. “Many shall say unto Me, in that... [ Continue Reading ]
ISRAEL HAS CAST OFF THE THING THAT IS GOOD - Or (since the word means “to cast off with abhorrence” “Israel hath east off and abhorred Good,” both “Him who is Good” and “that which is good.” The word “tob” includes both. They rejected good in rejecting God , “Who is simply, supremely, wholly, univer... [ Continue Reading ]
THEY HAVE SET UP KINGS, BUT NOT BY ME - God Himself foretold to Jeroboam by Ahijah the prophet, that He would “rend the kingdom out of the hands of Solomon, and give ten tribes” to him, “and” would “take” him, “and” he “should reign according to all that” his soul desired and” should “be king over I... [ Continue Reading ]
THY CALF, O SAMARIA, HATH CAST THEE OFF - Israel had cast off God, his good. In turn, the prophet says, the “calf,” which he had chosen to be his god instead of the Lord his God, “has cast” him “off.” He repeats the word, by which he had described Israel’s sin, ”Israel hath cast off and abhorred goo... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR - This verse may assign the reasons of God’s displeasure, “mine anger is kindled;” or of Israel’s impenitency, “How long will it be?” This indeed is only going a little further back, for Israel’s incorrigibleness was the ground of God’s displeasure. And they were incorrigible; because they had t... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR THEY HAVE SOWN THE WIND, AND THEY SHALL REAP THE WHIRLWIND - “They shall reap,” not merely as “they have sown,” but with an awful increase. They sowed folly and vanity, and shall reap, not merely emptiness and disappointment, but sudden, irresistible destruction. “They sowed the wind,” and, as o... [ Continue Reading ]
ISRAEL IS SWALLOWED UP - Not only shall all which they have, be swallowed up by the enemy, but themselves also; and this, not at any distant time, but “now.” “Now,” at a time all but present, “they shall be among the Gentiles, as a vessel wherein is no pleasure,” or, quite strictly, “Now they have b... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR THEY ARE GONE UP TO ASSYRIA - The ground of this their captivity is that wherein they placed their hope of safety. They shall be presently swallowed up; “for” they went to Asshur. The holy land being then honored by the spectral presence of God, all nations are said to “go up” to it. Now, since... [ Continue Reading ]
YEA, THOUGH THEY HAVE HIRED - Or better, “because or when they hinge among the pagan, now will I gather them;” i. e., I will gather the nations together. The sin of Israel should bring its own punishment. He sent presents to the king of Assyria, in order to strengthen himself against the will of God... [ Continue Reading ]
BECAUSE EPHRAIM HATH MADE MANY ALTARS TO SIN, ALTARS SHALL INDEED BE UNTO HIM TO SIN - that is, they shall be proved to him to be so, by the punishment which they shall draw upon him. The prophet had first shown them their folly in forsaking God for the help of man; now he shows them the folly of at... [ Continue Reading ]
I HAVE WRITTEN TO HIM THE GREAT THINGS OF MY LAW - Literally, “I write.” Their sin then had no excuse of ignorance. God had written their duties for them in the ten commandments with His own hand; He had written them of old and “manifoldly” , often repeated and in divers manners. He wrote those mani... [ Continue Reading ]
THEY SACRIFICE FLESH FOR THE SACRIFICES OF MINE OFFERINGS, AND EAT IT; BUT THE LORD ACCEPTETH THEM NOT - As they rejected God’s law, so God rejected their “sacrifices,” which were not offered according to His law. They, doubtless, thought much of their sacrifices; and this the prophet perhaps expres... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR ISRAEL HATH FORGOTTEN HIS MAKER - God was his Maker, not only as the Creator of all things, but as the Author of his existence as a people, as He saith, “hath he not made thee, and established thee?” Deuteronomy 32:6. AND BUILDETH TEMPLES - as for the two calves, at Bethel and at Dan. Since God... [ Continue Reading ]