7 But now, O Lord, you are our father; we are the earth, and you are our maker; and we are all the work of your hand.
They are all heated like an oven, and they put an end to their judges; all their kings have been made low; not one among them makes prayer to me.
And I was looking for a man among them who would make up the wall and take his station in the broken place before me for the land, so that I might not send destruction on it: but there was no one.
But your sins have come between you and your God, and by your evil doings his face has been veiled from you, so that he will give you no answer.
And they have not made prayer to me in their hearts, but they make loud cries on their beds; they are cutting themselves for food and wine, they are turned against me.
And I will put her on the coals so that she may be heated and her brass burned, so that what is unclean in her may become soft and her waste be completely taken away.
Son of man, the children of Israel have become like the poorest sort of waste metal to me: they are all silver and brass and tin and iron and lead mixed with waste. For this cause the Lord has said: Because you have all become waste metal, see, I will get you together inside Jerusalem. As they put silver and brass and iron and lead and tin together inside the oven, heating up the fire on it to make it soft; so will I get you together in my wrath and in my passion, and, heating the fire with my breath, will make you soft. Yes, I will take you, breathing on you the fire of my wrath, and you will become soft in it. As silver becomes soft in the oven, so you will become soft in it; and you will be certain that I the Lord have let loose my passion on you.
No one puts forward an upright cause, or gives a true decision: their hope is in deceit, and their words are false; they are with child with sin, and give birth to evil.
In that day my wrath will be moved against them, and I will be turned away from them, veiling my face from them, and destruction will overtake them, and unnumbered evils and troubles will come on them; so that in that day they will say, Have not these evils come on us because our God is not with us? Truly, my face will be turned away from them in that day, because of all the evil they have done in going after other gods.
For the Lord says, As for the unsexed who keep my Sabbaths, and give their hearts to pleasing me, and keep their agreement with me:
In overflowing wrath my face was veiled from you for a minute, but I will have pity on you for ever, says the Lord who takes up your cause.
Why, then, when I came, was there no man? and no one to give answer to my voice? has my hand become feeble, so that it is unable to take up your cause? or have I no power to make you free? See, at my word the sea becomes dry, I make the rivers a waste land: their fish are dead for need of water, and make an evil smell.
Or let him put himself under my power, and make peace with me.
And when your hands are stretched out to me, my eyes will be turned away from you: even though you go on making prayers, I will not give ear: your hands are full of blood.
If your children have done evil against him, then their punishment is from his hand.
And the Lord saw with disgust the evil-doing of his sons and daughters. And he said, My face will be veiled from them, I will see what their end will be: for they are an uncontrolled generation, children in whom is no faith. They have given my honour to that which is not God, moving me to wrath with their false worship: I will give their honour to those who are not a people, moving them to wrath by a foolish nation, For my wrath is a flaming fire, burning to the deep parts of the underworld, burning up the earth with her increase, and firing the deep roots of the mountains. I will send a rain of troubles on them, my arrows will be showered on them. They will be wasted from need of food, and overcome by burning heat and bitter destruction; and the teeth of beasts I will send on them, with the poison of the worms of the dust. Outside they will be cut off by the sword, and in the inner rooms by fear; death will take the young man and the virgin, the baby at the breast and the grey-haired man.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Isaiah 64
Commentary on Isaiah 64 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 64
This chapter goes on with that pathetic pleading prayer which the church offered up to God in the latter part of the foregoing chapter. They had argued from their covenant-relation to God and his interest and concern in them; now here,
And this was not only intended for the use of the captive Jews, but may serve for direction to the church in other times of distress, what to ask of God and how to plead with him. Are God's people at any time in affliction, in great affliction? Let them pray, let them thus pray.
Isa 64:1-5
Here,
Isa 64:6-12
As we have the Lamentations of Jeremiah, so here we have the Lamentations of Isaiah; the subject of both is the same-the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans and the sin of Israel that brought that destruction-only with this difference, Isaiah sees it at a distance and laments it by the Spirit of prophecy, Jeremiah saw it accomplished. In these verses,