Pieces of rock are found which, when split open, display the very slant of the rain-drop which fell on the sandstone of a primval period. Chapter 51. Isaiah 48:1-11 The Lord Corrects His People. Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn - To Abraham the founder of the nation. The Last 16 Minutes!-- Matthew 16:13-20, Exodus 1:8--2:10, Romans 12:1 … Note: Isaiah 51 looks into the future, from Isaiah’s perspective, to the time when the people of God found themselves in the Babylonian exile. The beautiful stone you pick up on the shore has been rolled and polished by the waters in the course of ages. Pit of depravity and defilement, misery, imminent peril, utter human helplessness. Still I see no cause for our being dispirited. The Lord’s answer, Isaiah 51:12-16. The Prophet now exhorts the Jews not to despair because they are few in number; for they had been cut down and diminished to such a degree that they appeared to be on the eve of being reduced to nothing, while there was little or no hope of any to succeed them. The mistake of the Jews, heretofore, has been, not in that they “followed after righteousness,” but in that they followed it “by the works of the law,” instead of “by faith,” as Abraham did (Romans 9:31, Romans 9:32; Romans 10:3, Romans 10:4; Romans 4:2-5). Geologic changes that brought the earth to its present form are interesting to the student because of their high antiquity. He compareth the bodies of Abraham and Sarah unto a rock, or pit, or quarry out of which stones are hewed or digged, thereby implying that God in some sort actually did that which Christ said he was able to do, Matthew 3:9, even of stones to raise up children unto Abraham; it being then as impossible by the course of nature for Abraham and Sarah in that age to procreate a child, as it is to hew a living child out of a rock, or to dig one out of a pit of stone. Let us … In this situation, God, or perhaps more properly the Messiah (compare the notes at Matthew 3:9, where he says, ‹For I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.‘. Their desires are after God. Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness and who seek Jehovah. God had promised that the seed of Abraham should be “as the stars of heaven,” (Genesis 15:5,) and as “the sand of the sea.” (Genesis 22:17.) It expresses substantially the same idea as the previous member of the verse. 1 Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the LORD: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged. These words were intended to encourage God's ancient people in their expectations of deliverance from the calamities that had befallen them on account of their sins. And to the hole of the pit whence ye were digged.] (1) Look unto the rock.—The implied argument is, that the wonder involved in the origin of Israel is as a ground of faith in its restoration and perpetuity. Hence they might infer that God, who, in so short a period, had multiplied their fathers, would in future multiply them also; because his power has not been diminished, and his will has not been changed. The prophet’s job is to heal the wounds of unwanted disorientation. Courage. — Abraham, who was a selected block, so to speak, out of the original quarry of mankind. Moving, changing jobs, personal … Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the Lord; look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged. look unto the rock whence they were hewn. There is room for a growing attainment to the end of life. 1. These two things, therefore, must be joined together; namely, the practice of righteousness and seeking God. "Ye that pursue righteousness ..." (Isaiah 51:1). OUR TEXT MAY BE FITTINGLY USED TO ENCOURAGE OUR HOPE FOR OTHERS. So will it be again. Look — Consider the state of Abraham and Sarah, from whom all of you sprang. Hearken unto me - That is, to the God of their fathers, who now addresses them. Sarah was old and unlikely to have a child. Living in a world that runs on the basis of rewards and punishments, many people have difficulty wit. Isaiah 51:1-6 Commentary by Richard W. Nysse. They are bidden to look back to the origin of their nation, in order that they may be comforted. So it is with the elect of God. A celebrated minister, who in early life had been a working stonemason, is said to have kept in his study, through a long life, the tools with which he had worked, so that he could look at them whenever he was unduly lifted up. Commentary on Isaiah 52:1-12 (Read Isaiah 52:1-12) The gospel proclaims liberty to those bound with fears. Isa . But their age is as nothing to Him whose goings forth have been of old from everlasting. Lowly dependence on Divine help. And we are now Christians; but we were not always such. That Christ was merely a man was almost the universal belief of Christendom. The prophet begins by meeting the fear that the difficulties in the way of so great a deliverance were too formidable. It will not be possible for him to think of what he was, without feelings of self-abasement; without a check being given to that unholy pride which is so apt to spring up in every breast. He compareth the bodies of Abraham and Sarah unto a. rock, or pit, or quarry out of which stones are hewed or digged, thereby implying that God in some sort actually did that which Christ said he was able to do, Matthew 3:9, even of stones to raise up children unto Abraham; it being then as impossible by the course of nature for Abraham and Sarah in that age to procreate a child, as it is to hew a living child out of a rock, or to dig one out of a pit of stone. Christians desire advancement on to perfection. How speedily did the 120 grow to 3000! Ye that follow after righteousness - The people who, feeling the want of salvation, seek the Lord... Albert Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible. [Note: Archer, p645.]. Look back, then, if discouraged with the fewness of God's people, to the rock whence the Church was hewn. We should be ten times more full of bliss if we were proportionately more full of thankfulness. How soon all nations felt the growing power of the Church! Isa . Digged out of the pit. I.A.1. The Lord directed them to consider their history, their origin. The sinfulness, misery, and danger of mankind by nature. Do ye suppose that God has changed His plans, or that men's hearts have changed their bias? "Seek." The bitter cup taken from her, and given to her enemies, Isaiah 51:21-23. Children's sermon. It encourages Christian faith and hope. By Home 19 February, 2021 Isaiah Commentary 0 Comments. Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness: Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged; — This formula is used when there is a turn from one class of hearers to another. It may be used to denote that God has taken them, as stone is taken from the quarry; that he found them in their natural state as unhewn blocks of marble are; that he has moulded and formed them by his own agency, and fitted them into his spiritual temple; and that they owe all the beauty and grace of their Christian deportment to him; that this is an argument to prove that he who had done so much for them as to transform them, so to speak, from rough and unsightly blocks to polished stones, fitted for his spiritual temple on earth, is able to keep them still, and to fit them for his temple above. Those have not right views of the degrading evil of sin who can boast of their former exploits in sin, or so speak of them as to excite the mirth of the listener. There are difficulties, temptations, weaknesses between us and the great future that is promised. Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged; consider the state of Abraham and Sarah, when they procreated Isaac, from whom Jacob and all of you sprang; for so he explains the metaphor in the next verse. They seek—. Our original state. This should cause low thoughts of ourselves, and high thoughts of Divine grace. hewn’ hole’ whence’ digged — Abraham, who was a selected block, so to speak, out of the original quarry of mankind. ii pp. We should remember evil surroundings—such as companionships, business influences, exposure to temptation, which increased the difficulty. At that time none could foresee what they would become. Let those weary and heavy laden under the burden of sin, find relief in Christ, shake themselves from the dust of their doubts and fears, and loose themselves from those bands. You say that you have no strength, that the men of valour have ceased, and that you are not skilful in the use of arms. He explains the method of “following righteousness” to consist in “seeking the Lord;” for they who make an outward shew of “righteousness,” and do not aim at this end, must have wandered during their whole life. They do not lie at the top of the quarry; but the Lord has to go down very low, that he may bring up these stones out of the depths of the fall, and lift them, as it were, out of deeper degradation than those which lie nearer the surface. Great as they had become—a people built into a magnificent palace—they lay in the rude quarry until the Divine Workman digged them out. OUR TEXT MAY BE VIEWED AS INSTRUCTIVE TO OURSELVES. (b) That is, to Abraham, of whom you were begotten, and to Sarah of whom we were born. The indictment is true. God is our Sovereign, and He claims our subjection and attention; we are to hearken to all His laws and precepts. Isaiah 48:1) whence their nation was hewn, had been called out of a strange land to the inheritance of Canaan, and blessed by God, the same God is able to deliver and restore them also (cf. Commentary. Application. The Church has been in a like listless state before, and out of that languid condition God has roused her up and brought her forth. David Guzik commentary on Jeremiah 51 continues the description of the word of judgment against Babylon, punishing it and its idols. Isaiah 51 emphatically seeks to break open an unimaginable future. Such is the argument in the passage before us; and such a use of it is, of course, perfectly legitimate and fair. 1 Hearken to Me, you pursuers of righteousness, you seekers of the Lord; look at the rock whence you were hewn and at the hole of the pit whence you were dug. Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the LORD: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged. Ye that follow’ ye that seek the Lord — The address is to those who fully observe the law, lead just lives, and desire entire approval from Jehovah. The Lord appealed to the righteous in Israel to listen to Him (cf. We should remember the sins we at that time committed, the evil propensities and habits we indulged, which were the special barriers in the way of our conversion. "Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you, for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him." For Jehovah hath comforted Zion; he hath comforted all her waste places, and hath made her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of Jehovah; and joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.". Only a few faithful ones maintained His Godhead at all hazards. No man who remembers from what a pit of corruption he was taken by Divine grace will complain that a more elevated, conspicuous, and honourable position in the Church has not been allotted him. He has found the world worthless. For example, the first address of the book summons Israel to hear the charge of rebellion (1:2; … How soon the 3000 multiplied a hundredfold! Their seeking YHWH would include their desiring to please him by obeying his commands and looking to him for … 1 Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the Lord: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged. In the "hole of the pit" (Psa ). They pursued righteousness when they did what is just or right. THE CONTEXT. Isaiah 51 falls within Second Isaiah’s powerful pastoral sermon to bring comfort and hope to a community struggling to recover from mass exile (chapters 40-55). That portion of rebellious Israel, however, that included sons of the devil such as Manasseh and the nation of blind and deaf hypocrites, most of whom remained in Babylon even after being commanded to leave, certainly never participated in the consolation and blessing detailed in this passage. Progression. (1-3) Listen: The LORD ’s past faithfulness is a promise of future blessing. Such retrospection will tend to the increase of many graces in his soul:—. 1050. The mention of Israel is, too, a poetic help to the parallelism. The rock is, of course, Abraham, the pit, Sarah. Watts believed the speaker, through Isaiah 51:4, was Darius. Matthew 3:9). Reflections of this nature would tend to instruct and comfort them under existing circumstances; would point out their duty, and minister consolation. Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary 51:1-3 It is good for those privileged by the new birth, to consider that they were shapen in sin. Hearken unto me, ye that follow after righteousness,.... After having declared the doom of the wicked, and those that trust to their own righteousness, the Lord returns to them that fear him, whom he describes as such that "follow after righteousness"; not the righteousness of the law, it is the character of carnal Israel to follow after that; nor is that attainable in the way it is pursued by such; nor is there any justification by it; nor is following that consistent with seeking the Lord, in the next clause: but the righteousness of Christ is meant; not his essential righteousness as God; nor the righteousness of his office as Mediator; but that which consists of his active and passive obedience; of which he is the author and giver, and is in him as its subject: this is what is commonly called imputed righteousness, an evangelical one, the righteousness of faith, and is justifying: "following after" this supposes a want of one; a sense of that want; a view of this as out of themselves, and in another; a love and liking of it, and a vehement desire for it; and what determines to an eager pursuit of it are its perfection, suitableness, and use: now such persons are called to hearken to the Lord; to the Word of the Lord, as the Targum; to Christ, to his Gospel, and to his ordinances, particularly to what is after said: ye that seek the Lord: the Lord Christ, for life and salvation; for righteousness and strength; for more grace from him; a greater knowledge of him, and of doctrine from him, as the Targum; and more communion with him; that seek his honour and glory in the world, and to be for ever with him; who seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; that seek him where he may be found, affectionately and sincerely, carefully, diligently, constantly, and for everything they want: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn; which is in the next verse interpreted of Abraham; so called, not so much for the strength of his faith, as for his old age; when he looked like a hard dry rock, from whom no issue could be expected; and yet from hence a large number of stones were hewn, or a race of men sprung: and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged; that is, to Sarah, who was for a long time barren, whose womb was shut up, but afterwards opened; and from whom, as from a cistern, (to which a wife is sometimes compared, Proverbs 5:15) flowed the waters of Judah, Isaiah 48:1 or the Jewish nation. But the idea is, that God had had the entire moulding of the nation; that he had taken Abraham and Sarah from a distant land, and bad formed them into a great people and nation for his own purpose. This mark of identification eliminates all of the captives except the righteous remnant, the ones who would return. (17-23)1-3 It is good for those privileged by the new birth, to consider that they were shapen in sin. Ur of the Chaldees was a … H. Spurgeon: Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, No. Isaiah 50:1-11 God’s Servant Must Suffer. Therefore, work on!—C. Isaiah 51:3 For the LORD shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste … From this counsel addressed to the Jews, I infer that in like manner it is the duty, and will be for the benefit of every true servant of God, occasionally to reflect on his own, original state, on the rise and progress of religion in his own soul, and on the experience which he has thus individually had of the Divine power, goodness, and mercy.