Isaiah 37:23 Whom have you reproached and blasphemed? and against whom have you exalted your voice, and lifted up your eyes on high?… Isaiah in his day saved Jerusalem by teaching the people a better idea of their God. For forty years he had been witnessing to a truer thought of God, and at last the crisis and the triumph of his religious statesmanship came. Jerusalem would have surrendered to Assyria had not Isaiah at last brought king and people, in their despair, to the faith in God to which for forty years he had borne witness. At an hour when the Assyrian was making his rapid march towards the city, two props of the people's confidence had entirely given way: their reliance upon Egypt, and their confidence in their religion. Isaiah had told them over and over again that these supports were rotten, and would give way when the crash came. And they did when at last came the scourge of the nations which had swept other cities before it reached Jerusalem. For a moment the luridness of the popular despair was lit up by a wild light of passion and revelry: "Let us eat and drink," they said, "for to-morrow we shall die." Then the hour for the triumph of the prophet's lifelong truth was come. He led a sobered people and a humbled king to the Holy One of Israel (Newman Smyth, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed? and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thine eyes on high? even against the Holy One of Israel. |
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