Commentary on Isaiah Volume 1 John Calvin
COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH
they have nothing more to suffer, and become more hardened. They do not even believe that they are any longer exposed to the judgment of God, who has already spent his rods; and as if they were altogether out of his power, they give themselves greater indulgence, and shake off every yoke.
But his hand is stretched out still. What we have now stated is the reason why Isaiah threatens that the hand of the Lord is still stretched out, that they may not think that they have escaped that hand. Now, this is said not for the purpose of instructing, but of accusing, though the threatenings have also a tendency to make doctrine better understood; but as he had to do with obstinate men, on whom no chastisement produced any good effect, he therefore announces that the chastisements are not yet at an end; and that, although God has for a time discontinued those chastisements, still he has not dispensed with them, but has his hand lifted up to inflict a new wound.
13. But the people hath not turned. 153 The copulative( וvau) is rendered by some interpreters for, as if the Prophet were assigning a reason why the Lord does not cease to employ his scourges in the continual infliction of chastisements; that is, because the people are so hardened and obstinate that they will not repent. When there is no repentance, it is unreasonable to expect that God will yield to obstinate men, as if he were vanquished; and the consequence is, that he prepares himself for inflicting severer punishment. Since, therefore, no chastisements had produced any amendment in Israel, he must perish; for when they had been so frequently struck and punished, and did not at all repent, this was a proof of the most desperate wickedness.
This is a very severe rebuke, that although the Lord not only admonishes us by words, but actually pushes us forward, and constrains us by various chastisements, still we grow hardened, and do not suffer ourselves to be drawn away from our crimes and our lusts. Desperate wickedness is thus evinced, and nothing more heinous could be spoken or conceived. It is a heinous offense, when men do not receive instruction as soon as it is delivered to them; it is more heinous, when they are not affected by rebukes; it is the most heinous of all, when, in spite even of chastisements, they grow hardened, and even kick, or by their headstrong behavior inflame still more the indignation of the Judge, and do not consider why they were punished, or what it is to which the Lord calls them. Accordingly, when no remedies produce any good effect, what must we think but that the disease is incurable and utterly desperate?
This rebuke applies not to the Israelites only but to us also. Already hath the Lord chastised the whole world by various afflictions, so that hardly any part could be exempted from distresses and calamities. And yet all appear to have obstinately conspired against God, so that, whatever He does, they cease not to retain their former character, and to carry on their wicked courses. Justly, therefore, might the Lord address to us the same expostulation, and assuredly he addresses us by the mouth of Isaiah; and we
153Branch and rush. — Eng. Ver.