Home | What's New |
Mission Statement | Location|
Services | Calendar |
Lessons |
Committees | Activities |
Search | Links
Music, Search By: Hymnal / By Tune
/ Music Book |
Scott's Reference Library
Isaiah 30:18 through Isaiah 30:26 (NIV)
18 Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you;
he rises to show you compassion.
For the LORD is a God of justice.
Blessed are all who wait for him!
19O people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious
he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you.
20Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of
affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will
see them. 21Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a
voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” 22Then you will defile
your idols overlaid with silver and your images covered with gold; you will
throw them away like a menstrual cloth and say to them, “Away with you!”
23He will also send you rain for the seed you sow in the ground, and the food
that comes from the land will be rich and plentiful. In that day your cattle
will graze in broad meadows. 24The oxen and donkeys that work the soil will eat
fodder and mash, spread out with fork and shovel. 25In the day of great
slaughter, when the towers fall, streams of water will flow on every high
mountain and every lofty hill. 26The moon will shine like the sun, and the
sunlight will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when
the LORD binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted.
Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible
VERSES 8-18
The Jews were the only professing people God then had in the world, yet many
among them were rebellious. They had the light, but they loved darkness rather.
The prophets checked them in their sinful pursuits, so that they could not
proceed without fear; this they took amiss. But faithful ministers will not be
driven from seeking to awaken sinners. God is the Holy One of Israel, and so
they shall find him. They did not like to hear of his holy commandments and his
hatred of sin; they desired that they might no more be reminded of these things.
But as they despised the word of God, their sins undermined their safety. Their
state would be dashed in pieces like a potter’s vessel. Let us return from our
evil ways, and settle in the way of duty; that is the way to be saved. Would we
be strengthened, it must be in quietness and in confidence, keeping peace in our
own minds, and relying upon God. They think themselves wiser than God; but the
project by which they thought to save themselves was their ruin. Only here and
there one shall escape, as a warning to others. If men will not repent, turn to
God, and seek happiness in his favour and service, their desires will but hasten
their ruin. Those who make God alone their confidence, will have comfort. God
ever waits to be gracious to all that come to him by faith in Christ, and happy
are those who wait for him.
VERSES 19-26
God’s people will soon arrive at the Zion above, and then they will weep no more
for ever. Even now they would have more comfort, as well as holiness, if they
were more constant in prayer. A famine of bread is not so great a judgment as a
famine of the word of God. There are right-hand and left-hand errors; the
tempter is busy courting us into by-paths. It is happy if, by the counsels of a
faithful minister or friend, or the checks of conscience, and the strivings of
God the Spirit, we are set right when doubting, and prevented from going wrong.
They shall be cured of their idolatry. To all true penitents sin becomes very
hateful. This is shown daily in the conversion of souls, by the power of Divine
grace, to the fear and love of God. Abundant means of grace, with the influences
of the Holy Spirit, would be extended to places destitute of them. The effect of
this should be comfort and joy to the people of God. Light, that is, knowledge,
shall increase. This is the light which the gospel brought into the world, and
which proclaims healing to the broken-hearted.
See Healing