Isaiah 63:17 O LORD, why have you made us to err from your ways, and hardened our heart from your fear? Return for your servants' sake… Very singular is the plea that the sinfulness of the people is due to the excessive and protracted anger of Jehovah, who "causes them to err from His ways" (cf. Isaiah 64:5, 7). This feeling appears to proceed from two sources; on the one hand the ancient idea that national calamity is the proof of Jehovah's anger, and on the other the lesson taught by all the prophets, that the sole cause of Jehovah's anger is the people's sins. The writer seems unable perfectly to harmonize these principles. He accepts the verdict of Providence on the sins of the nation, but he feels also a disproportion between the offence and the punishment, which neutralizes all efforts after righteousness, unless Jehovah will relent from the fierceness of His wrath. The higher truth, that the Divine chastisement aims at the purification of the people, and is therefore a mark of love, is not yet grasped, and for this reason the Old Testament believers fall short of the liberty of the sons of God. Yet amid all these perplexities the faith of the Church holds fast to the truth of the Fatherhood of God, and appeals to the love which must be in His heart, although it be not manifest in His providential dealings. (Prof. J. Skinner, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: O LORD, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants' sake, the tribes of thine inheritance. |
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