Isaiah 30 · The Lantern

Ho! uncontrolled children, says the Lord, who give effect to a purpose which is not mine, and who make an agreement, but not by my spirit, increasing their sin:

Reprimand is disapproval expressed in correction or strongly worded blame. The Educator resorts to this method of training when he says through Isaiah, "Woe to you, apostate children, says the Lord, that you would take counsel and not of me, and make treaties and not of my Spirit." He flavors each pronouncement in turn with the tart spice of fear to whet the appetite of his peo…

(Chapter 30, Verse 1 and following) Woe to the rebellious children, says the Lord, who make plans that are not from me, who weave a web without my Spirit, adding sin upon sin. You who walk to go down to Egypt, without consulting me, hoping for help from Pharaoh's strength and relying on the protection of Egypt's shadow.

667. Woe to you, apostate children. In this part, the prophet threatens against those who despised the prophet Jeremiah, and who went into Egypt against his counsel, as it says in Jeremiah 42 and 43.

Who make a move to go down into Egypt, without authority from me; who are looking to the strength of Pharaoh for help, and whose hope is in the shade of Egypt.

And the strength of Pharaoh will be your shame, and your hope in the shade of Egypt will come to nothing.

For his chiefs are at Zoan, and his representatives have come to Hanes.

For they have all come with offerings to a people of no use to them, in whom is no help or profit, but only shame and a bad name.

The word about the Beasts of the South. Through the land of trouble and grief, the land of the she-lion and the voice of the lion, of the snake and the burning winged snake, they take their wealth on the backs of young asses, and their stores on camels, to a people in whom is no profit.

For there is no use or purpose in the help of Egypt: so I have said about her, She is Rahab, who has come to an end.

Now go, put it in writing before them on a board, and make a record of it in a book, so that it may be for the future, a witness for all time to come.

[Isaiah] set his prophecy down in writing in a new book so that, after his prophecy was fulfilled, what he had written might bear witness against the Jews of what the inspired prophet predicted to them a long time before.

(Verse 8.) Now, write for them on a tablet. Carefully inscribe it in the book: and it shall be a testimony until the last day. The Hebrews say that in the Prophets there is one spirit, and all times are connected before the Lord. Jeremiah commands, and it is God's command, that he writes on a tablet when entering Egypt, which is made of imperishable wood.

Second, he sets out the confirmation of the command. Now therefore, you, Isaiah, go in, by prophetic vision, or you, Jeremiah, go in, into Egypt with the people, as it says in Jeremiah 43; third, he assigns the fruit of this confirmation: and it shall be in that day for a testimony for ever: write this for a memorial (Exod 17:14).

For they are an uncontrolled people, false-hearted, who will not give ear to the teaching of the Lord:

Who say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Do not give us word of what is true, but say false things to give us pleasure:

The chief priests and the Pharisees, through the agency of Pilate, sealed the tomb; but the women saw him who was risen.… The chief priests lacked understanding, but the women beheld with their own eyes.

Say, when is a person most insulted—when he is silent, and one makes no answer, or, when he does speak (and is unheeded)? So that the insult is greater in the present case, when He does speak and thou wilt not hear: greater the contempt. "Speak not to us," we read, they said of old to the Prophets: but ye do worse, saying, Speak: we will not do.

Second, he sets out their contempt of the prophets: who say to the seers, according to which they prohibited them from carrying out their proper office: you seer, go, flee away (Amos 7:12); inasmuch as they induced them to lie: speak unto us pleasant things: behold the words of the prophets with one mouth declare good things to the king (1 Kgs 22:13).

Get out of the good way, turning from the right road; do not keep the Holy One of Israel before our minds.

For this cause the Holy One of Israel says, Because you will not give ear to this word, and are looking for help in ways of deceit and evil, and are putting your hope in them:

This sin will be to you like a crack in a high wall, causing its fall suddenly and in a minute.

And he will let it be broken as a potter's vessel is broken: it will be smashed to bits without mercy; so that there will not be a bit in which one may take fire from the fireplace, or water from the spring.

For the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, said, In quiet and rest is your salvation: peace and hope are your strength: but you would not have it so.

Would you know the power of repentance? Would you understand this strong weapon of salvation and the might of confession? By confession Hezekiah routed 185,000 of the enemy. That was important, but it was little compared to what shall be told. The same king's repentance won the repeal of the sentence God had passed on him.

So useful are trials for Christians that through them, our spirit becomes a sacrifice to God. For it is written in the psalm: "The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." Enlightened by this and innumerable other texts of this type, let us hasten as rapidly as possible to be converted to God absolutely.… Convert…

676. For thus says the Lord. Here he denounces their contempt of divine counsel, and concerning this, he sets out three things. First, the counsel: if you return, below: be converted to me, and you shall be saved (Isa 45:22).

Saying, No, for we will go in flight on horses; so you will certainly go in flight: and, We will go on the backs of quick-running beasts; so those who go after you will be quick-footed.

A thousand will go in fear before one; even before five you will go in flight: till you are like a pillar by itself on the top of a mountain, and like a flag on a hill.

For this cause the Lord will be waiting, so that he may be kind to you; and he will be lifted up, so that he may have mercy on you; for the Lord is a God of righteousness: there is a blessing on all whose hope is in him.

(Verse 18) Therefore the Lord waits, to have mercy on you, and therefore he will be exalted in showing mercy to you, because the Lord is a God of justice: blessed are all they that wait for him. Great is the mercy of God, that he waits for our repentance, and until we turn away from our vices, he restrains his mighty hand, so as not to be forced to strike.

For he calls and invites us, when he says, "All the day long I stretched forth my hands to a disobedient and gainsaying people"; and he is invited by us when we say to him, "All the day long I have stretched forth my hands unto you." He waits for us, when it is said by the prophet, "Therefore the Lord waits to have compassion upon us"; and he is waited for by us, when we say, "…

677. Therefore the Lord waits. Here he sets out consolation, and concerning this, he does two things: first, he sets out the intention of having mercy; second, he describes the benefit of mercy: for the people (Isa 30:19). Concerning the first, he sets out three things.

O people, living in Zion, at Jerusalem, your weeping will be ended; he will certainly have mercy on you at the sound of your cry; when it comes to his ear, he will give you an answer.

And though the Lord will give you the bread of trouble and the water of grief, you will no longer put your teacher on one side, but you will see your teacher:

(Verse 20.) Crying, you will not weep in vain, showing compassion, he will have compassion on you: at the sound of your cry, as soon as he hears, he will answer you. When you return to Zion and dwell in Jerusalem, you will not weep as you wept before, but your mourning will turn into joy: For blessed are those who weep, for they themselves will laugh (Luke VI, 21).

He has seen us sinning and has borne with it. He who forbade us to sin before we did it does not stop waiting to pardon us even after we have sinned. The one we have rejected is calling us. We have turned away from him, but he has not turned away.

Against poverty: and the Lord will give you spare bread, and this is the sense: they will be content with little food: the chief thing for man's life is water and bread (Sir 29:28[21]); or because in the return from Babylon they suffered scarcity. This should be understood mystically, according to the Gloss. 679.

And at your back, when you are turning to the right hand or to the left, a voice will be sounding in your ears, saying, This is the way in which you are to go.

(Verse 21.) And the Lord will give you tight bread and brief water. If we refer these times to Zerubbabel, the interpretation is easy; that under him there was not perfect joy, as David says: When the Lord turned the captivity of Zion, we were made like those who are comforted: so that they would receive not full and perfect consolation, but a likeness of consolation.

God opens the bosom of his loving kindness to us if we return to him after sinning, for he says by the prophet, "If a man puts away his wife, and she goes from him and marries another man, shall he return to her any more? Shall not that woman be polluted and defiled?

Behind your back, like someone fleeing when called back by his pursuer: he has given you a teacher of justice (Joel 2:23); and he sets out the teaching: this is the way: we will go the king's highway (Num 21:22).

And you will make unclean what is covering your pictured images of silver, and the plating of your images of gold: you will send them away as an unclean thing, saying, Be gone!

And he will give rain for your seed, so that you may put it in the earth; and you will have bread from the produce of the earth, good and more than enough for your needs: in that day the cattle will get their food in wide grass-lands.

(Verse 23.) And you shall defile the plates of your carved silver, and the garment of your molded gold, and scatter them like the impurity of a menstruating woman: go forth, you shall say to it. LXX: And you shall defile the silver and the gold idols: you shall break them and scatter them like the water of a menstruating woman, and you shall cast them away like feces.

For "in a good heart wisdom will rest," and "he that fears the Lord shall find knowledge with righteousness." But that we must attain to spiritual knowledge in the order of which we have already spoken, we are taught also by the blessed apostle.

680. And first, he promises fertility of the land, promising the cause: and rain shall be given: he will make the early and the latter rain to come down to you (Joel 2:23); and the effect, as to the food of men: and the bread of the corn of the land shall be most plentiful, and fat: Aser, his bread shall be fat (Gen 49:20); he fills you with the fat of corn (Ps 147:14); as to t…

And the oxen and the young asses which are used for ploughing, will have salted grain which has been made free from the waste with fork and basket.

And there will be rivers and streams of water on every tall mountain and on every high hill, in the day when great numbers are put to the sword, when the towers come down.

And the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times greater, as the light of seven days, in the day when the Lord puts oil on the wounds of his people, and makes them well from the blows they have undergone.

(Verse 26) And there will be the light of the moon, like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven days, on the day when the Lord binds up the wounds of his people and heals the bruises inflicted by his blow.

Why should the lunar reckoning be calculated from the noontide hours, seeing that the moon had not yet been placed in the heavens or gone forth over the earth? On the contrary, none of the feast days of the law began and ended at noon or in the afternoon, but all did so in the evening.

682. Third, the radiance of heaven: and the light of the sun shall be as the light of seven days, that is, as much light in one day as there is now in seven days, as if sevenfold; or as it was in the first week of seven days.

See, the name of the Lord is coming from far, burning with his wrath, with thick smoke going up: his lips are full of passion, and his tongue is like a burning fire:

And his breath is as an overflowing stream, coming up even to the neck, shaking the nations for their destruction, like the shaking of grain in a basket: and he will put a cord in the mouths of the people, turning them out of their way.

You will have a song, as in the night when a holy feast is kept; and you will be glad in heart, as when they go with music of the pipe to the mountain of the Lord, the Rock of Israel.

And the Lord will send out the sound of his great voice, and they will see his arm stretched out, with the heat of his wrath, and the flame of a burning fire; with a cloud-burst, and storm, and a rain of ice.

For through the voice of the Lord the Assyrian will be broken, and the Lord's rod will be lifted up against him.

And every blow of the rod of his punishment, which the Lord will send on him, will be with the sound of music: and with the waving of his sword the Lord will make war against him.

For a place of fire has long been ready; yes, it has been made ready for the king; he has made it deep and wide: it is massed with fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of fire, puts a light to it.

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