Commentary on Isaiah Volume 1 John Calvin
JOHN CALVIN
passage. All who are created by the Lord are likewise appointed by him for a fixed purpose. He does not throw down men at random on the earth, to go wherever they please, but guides all by his secret purpose, and regulates and controls the violent passions of the reprobate, so as to drive them in whatever manner he thinks fit, and to check and restrain them according to his pleasure. He therefore calls them sanctified ones, "set apart and prepared to execute his will," though they had no such intention. Hence also we are taught to ascribe to the secret judgment of God all violent commotions, and this yields wonderful consolation; for whatever attempts may be made by wicked men, yet they will accomplish nothing but what the Lord has decreed.
I have also called my mighty ones. The phrase, I have called, conveys more than the phrase, I have commanded, which he had used in the former clause. It means that they will be roused to action, not only at the bidding of God, but by the very sound of his voice; as if I were to call a person to me, and he were immediately to follow. He threatens, therefore, that Babylon shall be destroyed by the Medes and Persians, in the same manner as if they obeyed the call of God; for though they were prompted to battle by their own ambition, pride, and cruelty, yet God directed them, without knowing it, to execute his judgment.
4. The noise of a multitude in the mountains. He adds a still more lively representation, (ὑποτύπωσιν,) that is, a description by which he places the event as it were before our eyes. The prophets are not satisfied with speaking, without also giving a bold picture of the events themselves. Words uttered plainly, and in the ordinary manner, do not strike us so powerfully or move our hearts so much as those figures which delineate a lively resemblance of the events. As if he had said, "Now, indeed, you hear a man speaking, but know that this voice will be so powerful that at the sound of it nations shall be roused, peoples shall make a noise, and in vast crowds shall shout and roar to bring destruction on the inhabitants of Babylon. This proclamation, therefore, will be as efficacious, even after that I am dead, as if you now saw what I foretell to you."
In this event, therefore, we see how great is the efficacy of the word, which all the creatures both in heaven and in earth obey. We ought to be more strongly confirmed in the belief of this doctrine, by perceiving that every one of the events which had been predicted many centuries before has taken place. For this reason he declares that the Lord of hosts mustereth the host of the battle, that the various nations are moved by God's direction, and that, although nothing was farther from their intention than to inflict the punishment which he had appointed, still they do nothing but according to his command, as if some earthly general were to draw up his forces.
5. Coming from a distant country. He repeats and confirms more fully what I stated a little before, that the operations of war do not spring up at random from the earth; for though everything disorderly is vomited out