Commentary on Isaiah Volume 2 John Calvin
JOHN CALVIN
because otherwise it might be objected, "What is it to us if our enemies be punished? What good does it do to us? Must we take delight in the distresses of enemies?" Thus he expressly declares that it will promote our "salvation;" for the vengeance which God takes on wicked men is connected with the salvation of the godly. In what manner the godly are delivered from anxiety and dread by the favor of God and by the expectation of his aid, has been explained at a former passage). 24 (Isaiah 7:4.) At present it ought to be observed, that God is prepared and armed with vengeance, that believers may learn to lean on his aid, and not to fancy some deity unemployed in heaven. Such is also the object of the repetition of the words, "he will come;" because distrust is not all at once banished from the hearts of men.
The end of the verse may either be rendered, God himself will come with a recompense, or He will come with the recompense of God; but as the meaning is the same, the reader may make his choice Yet if it be thought preferable to view {( }אלהיםelohim) as in the genitive case, "of God," then by "the recompense of God" is emphatically meant that which belongs peculiarly to God, that believers may be fully convinced that he is a "rewarder" as truly as he is God. 25
5. Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened. 26 He continues the promise about the restoration of the Church, in order to encourage the hearts of the godly, who must have been grievously dismayed by the frightful calamities which he foretold. Since a true restoration is accomplished by Christ, we must therefore come to him, if we wish to know the meaning of the words which Isaiah employs in this passage; and indeed it is only by his kindness that we rise again to the hope of a heavenly life. Isaiah probably alludes to a former prediction, (Isaiah 29:10,) in which he threatened against the Jews dreadful blindness, madness, and total stupefaction of the soul. He now promises that, when Christ shalt shine forth, those senses of which they were deprived for a time shall be renovated and brightened to a new life. There is weight in the adverb Then; for we ought to infer from it that, so long as we are alienated from Christ, we are dumb, blind, and lame, and, in short, that we are destitute of all ability to do what is good, but that we are renewed by the Spirit of Christ, so as to enjoy real health.
By the tongue and ears and feet he means all the faculties of our soul, which in themselves are so corrupt that nothing that is good can be obtained from them till they are restored by the kindness of Christ. The eyes cannot see what is right, and the ears cannot hear, and the feet cannot guide us
24Commentary on Isaiah, vol 1, p. 232. 25"Vengeance shall come. The meaning is the same as if he had said, 'God will come in vengeance, or as an avenger.' Again, the retribution of God shall come against your enemies and deliver you." — Jarchi. "The construction of the second clause is greatly perplexed by making {{( אלהיםelohim) the subject of {( }יבואyabo.) The true construction as given by Junius, Cocceius, Vitringa, and most later writers, makes behold your God an exclamation, and vengeance the subject of the verb." — Alexander.
26"That is," says Jarchi, "who have hitherto been blind so as not to know the reverence (or fear) of me upon them." Or, as explained by his annotator Breithaupt, "Who have hitherto shaken off the yoke of the fear of God, and have not manifested the reverence that is due to God."