Isaiah 54:6-13 For the LORD has called you as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when you were refused, said your God.… Mark what the words do convey. God is speaking to men who had persistently sinned against all the influences of His love and grace, to men who were being consumed by the inevitable results of their transgressions. And He tells these poor miserable creatures that they are as dear to Him as the bride to her husband; that, though their offences against Him have been so many and so deep, He cannot tear His love for them out of His heart. Nay, as if this were not enough, He goes on to say that, though the blame is none of His, He is willing to take all the blame of their offences on Himself. Instead of reproaching them for their sins against HIS love, He compares them to a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, to a young and tender bride whose husband has despised and disgraced her, refusing to live with her and sending her away from his tent. It is He who has abandoned her, not she who has abandoned Him. It is He who has been hard and stern, not she who has been wilful and gone astray. But He never meant to be hard and stern. It was only for a brief moment that He left her, and in a momentary flush of anger. If she will return to Him, and give Him another chance, He will welcome her with "great mercies" and comfort her with an "everlasting kindness." How shall He persuade her to return, to trust in Him? how convince her that He will be angry with her no more? He calls heaven and earth to witness to His truth, His fidelity, His deathless and unchanging love. He can appeal to His covenant with her, with Israel. She may think that that has been broken both by Him and by herself. But there was one of His covenants that had never been broken, an unconditional covenant, the covenant with Noah, which did not depend on men and their obedience, which depended only on God and on His faithfulness to His word. Henceforth His covenant with her shall be as the "waters of Noah;" He will no more fall in His love to her than He will suffer the earth to be wasted by another flood. He will never forsake her, even though she should forsake Him; never be wroth with her, nor rebuke her, even though she should still be wilful and provoke Him to anger. Nay, more; as if even this great promise were not enough, He casts about for another and a still more reassuring figure, and goes on to say: The mountains were planted and the hills stood firm before the Deluge swept over the earth; even the waters of Noah could not wash them away, nor as much as make them quake. And His love shall henceforth be firm and unchanging as the mountains and hills; nay, more firm and unchanging. The mountains may remove and the hills may quake; but His lovingkindness shall never remove, His covenant of peace shall never quake. Even all this, wonderful and incredible as it is, is not enough. There is the sigh of an infinite compassion and truth in the exclamation, "O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, not comforted! " There is an unbounded and Divine generosity in the promise to the bride, to the woman, that, if she will only come back to Him, her very palace shall be built of rare gems; and in the promise to the mother, than which no promise could be more dear to a mother's heart, "All thy children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children." Is that a fable of man's invention? Can it be? Would any man have dared to give it as a statement of the facts, or possible facts of human life? (S. Cox, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For the LORD hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused, saith thy God. |
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