Isaiah 1:25-27 And I will turn my hand on you, and purely purge away your dross, and take away all your tin:… Notice the imagery. Here is a community, an individual, that knows and belongs to God; redeemed of the Lord; His own. Yet into life, and into work, and into testimony and service, there has come that which He compares to dross and to alloy in metal The two words in the imagery (dross and alloy) are not precisely the same in idea, Dross suggests to us that which is repulsive, as well as worthless — the glaring inconsistency, crude, and ugly. In the alloy or tin, which looks so much like silver, and yet is different, we see rather the ore, specious and subtle ingredients of evil that enter into the Christian's work and life — not crying inconsistencies so much as the more interior and hidden evil of silent self-complacency; of a tacit search for our own glory under colour of the Lord's; things which the soul has never fairly traced out, but which it may plainly trace if it will firmly use God's tests. And these are the things of which we read: "I will turn my hand upon them and thoroughly purge them." (Bp. H. C. G. Moule, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin:WEB: and I will turn my hand on you, thoroughly purge away your dross, and will take away all your tin. |
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