Isaías 1
Alexander Maclaren · Citado em PreceptAustin
Isaías 1:2-4
Maclaren adds that… A true prophet’s words are of universal application, even when they are most specially addressed to a particular audience. Just because this indictment was so true of Judah, is it true of all men, for it is not concerned with details peculiar to a long-past period and state of society, but with the broad generalities common to us all. As another great teacher in Old Testament times said, ‘I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt-offerings, to have been continually before me.’ (Ps 50:8) Isaiah has nothing to say about ritual or ceremonial omissions, which to him were but surface matters after all, but he sets in blazing light the foundation facts of Judah’s (and every man’s) distorted relation to God. And how lovingly, as well as sternly, God speaks through him! That divine lament which heralds the searching indictment is not unworthy to be the very words of the Almighty Lover of all men, sorrowing over His prodigal and fugitive sons. Nor is its deep truth less than its tenderness. For is not man’s sin blackest when seen against the bright background of God’s fatherly love? True, the fatherhood that Isaiah knew referred to God’s relation to the nation rather than to the individual, but the great truth which is perfectly revealed by the Perfect Son was in part shown to the prophet. The east was bright with the unrisen sun, and the tinted clouds that hovered above the place of its rising seemed as if yearning to open and let him through. (Isaiah 1:1-9, 16-20 The Great Suit: Jehovah Versus Judah) Matthew
Isaías 1:2-4
Maclaren adds that… Man’s neglect of God’s benefits puts him below the animals that ‘know’ the hand that feeds and governs them. Some men think it a token of superior ‘culture’ and advanced views to throw off allegiance to God. It is a token that they have less intelligence than their dog. There is something very beautiful and pathetic in the fact that Judah is not directly addressed, but that Isa 1:2, 3, 4 are a divine soliloquy. They might rather be called a father’s lament than an indictment. The forsaken father is, as it were, sadly brooding over his erring child’s sins, which are his father’s sorrows and his own miseries. (Isaiah 1:1-9, 16-20 The Great Suit: Jehovah Versus Judah) Illustration - A Haifa policeman, who knew his Bible, got on the trail of a gang of smugglers. They used an donkey-drawn caravan to escape. The policemen managed to capture some of the donkeys, though the smugglers got away. The clever officer let the beasts of burden go without food for several days and then he turned them loose. And just as he predicted from Isaiah 1:3, “the ox knoweth his owner, and the donkey his master’s crib,” the starving animals led the police directly to the smuggler’s hide-out! —World Christian Digest But Israel does not know - In the Septuagint (LXX), the Greek translates this phrase with a negative (ou) which signifies absolute negation - "Israel absolutely does not know" (cp lack of knowledge in Hosea 4:1-6 above)
Isaías 1:2-4
Maclaren comments that… In Isa 1:4 the black catalogue of the prodigal’s doings begins on the surface with what we call ‘moral’ delinquencies, and then digs deeper to disclose the root of these in what we call ‘religious’ relations perverted. The two are inseparably united, for no man who is wrong with God can be right with duty or with men. Notice, too, how one word flashes into clearness the sad truth of universal experience—that ‘iniquity,’ however it may delude us into fancying that by it we throw off the burden of conscience and duty, piles heavier weights on our backs. The doer of iniquity is ‘laden with iniquity.’ (Isaiah 1:1-9, 16-20 The Great Suit: Jehovah Versus Judah) Offspring of evildoers, sons who act corruptly!: Jeremiah 2:33; Ezekiel 16:33 Isaiah 1 Resources - Multiple Sermons and Commentaries Offspring of evildoers - Children (literally seed) of evil parents (Ed: Note the redeeming power of the gospel to redeem us from the sinful legacy inherited from our forefathers! Hallelujah! - 1Pe 1:18-note) In his first and last (Acts 7:58, 59, 60) great sermon Stephen speaking to the Jews addressed them in essence as the seed of evildoers declaring… You men who are stiff-necked (literally hard neck = obstinate = fixed and unyielding in course or purpose implying usually an unreasonable persistence) and uncircumcised in heart (yes they had physical circumcision but that was useless in regard to salvation - see Ro 2:28, 29-note, Col 2:11, 12-note) and ears are always (this means what it says = continually including in Isaiah's time) resisting (strictly, fall against, rush against; hence, strive against, oppose: resist by actively opposing pressure or power) the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did. (offspring of evildoers) Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who had previously announced the coming of the Righteous One (Isaiah prophesied more concerning the Messiah than any other OT prophet and yet tradition says he was sawn in two!), whose betrayers and murderers you have now become (Acts 7:51, 52) Comment: Throughout the centuries, the majority of the Jews (except the small believing remnant) had refused to submit to God's will and way and obey the truth He had revealed to them in His divine acts and Holy Word. Their ears did not hear the truth, their hearts did not receive the truth, and their necks did not bow to the truth. As a result, they killed their own Messiah! Offspring (02233) (zera) means seed, issue, progeny, posterity, family. How sad that this same Hebrew word was used to describe them at their genesis as the seed of Abraham (eg, see Ge 12:7), but in this verse as being born to parents who commit evil. Evildoers (07489) (ra'a) means be harmful, to be injurious, to do harm or do hurt. Remember that neither God nor His mouthpiece Isaiah found joy in calling the chosen people rebels, evildoers, etc, but desired that in the hearing of this reproof, they might come under conviction of their sins and repent and be healed. C H Spurgeon, as God's mouthpiece in the late 1800's sought a similar outcome from his preaching… When Spurgeon preached, hearts broke. Even the proud, the self-righteous, and hardened rebels couldn’t resist coming to hear him preach. And then it wasn’t long before many of them surrendered to his Lord. One afternoon Spurgeon went to test the acoustics in the Crystal Palace, where he was to preach the next day. He thundered forth the words of John 1:29, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” Little did he realize that a custodian up in one of the balconies heard those words as a voice from heaven. He came under such conviction that he had to leave his work and get alone with God. After a brief season of spiritual struggling, he found peace and life by beholding the Lamb of God (C. H. Spurgeon Autobiography, The Banner of Truth Trust)
Isaías 1:2-4
Maclaren - But the bitter fountain of all evil lies in distorted relations to God. ‘They have forsaken the Lord’; that is why they ‘do corruptly.’ They have ‘despised the Holy One of Israel’; that is why they are ‘laden with iniquity.’ Alienated hearts separate from Him. To forsake Him is to despise Him. To go from Him is to go ‘away backward.’ Whatever may have been our inheritance of evil, we each go further from Him. And this fatherly lament over Judah is indeed a wail over every child of man. Does it not echo in the ‘pearl of parables,’ and may we not suppose that it suggested that supreme revelation of man’s misery and God’s love? (Isaiah 1:1-9, 16-20 The Great Suit: Jehovah Versus Judah)