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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMatthew Poole Commentary - Isaiah 8:19 - 8:19
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When they, the Israelites, to whom I and my children are signs and wonders, who are fallen from God, and his true religion and worship, into superstition and idolatry, and will endeavour to seduce you into the same impiety, shall say unto you, my children, whom the prophet here arms against the common temptation.
Seek unto them for advice and help, and seek no more to the prophets, who have hitherto deluded you with vain words. This was the counsel of the ungodly and unbelieving Jews.
Wizards; of whom see Lev_19:31 20:27 Deu_18:11.
That peep, and that mutter; that speak with a puling and low voice, as these two words signify; which they affected to do, speaking rather inwardly in their bellies, than outwardly and audibly with their mouths and voice, as the title of ventriloqui, commonly given to them, signifies.
Should not a people seek unto their God? this answer the prophet puts into their mouths, to the foregoing counsel. Doth not every nation, in cases of difficulty or distress, seek to their own gods for relief? Much more should we do so, that have the only true God for our God.
For the living to the dead; shall they seek (which words are easily understood out of the foregoing clause) for the living, &c? That living men should inquire of the living God is proper and reasonable; but it is highly absurd for them to forsake him, and to seek to dead idols, either to the images, or to the spirits of dead men, which are supposed to dwell and speak in them.