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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Isaiah 8:16 - 8:22
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Warning Against False Testimony
v. 16. Bind up the testimony, so the Lord says to Immanuel, the Messiah, or directly to Isaiah, seal the Law among My disciples, so that the Word of the Lord is sealed and kept safe through the power of the Savior exerted through the Gospel message.
v. 17. And I will wait upon the Lord, so Immanuel—or the prophet—calls out in cheerful confidence, that hideth His face from the house of Jacob, by rejecting the great mass of unbelievers among the people, and I will look for Him, trusting in the riches of His mercy, in the certainty of the salvation of His chosen people.
v. 18. Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given Me, all those who have accepted the Messiah in true faith, who belong to the elect of the Lord, are for signs and for wonders in Israel, placed before the eyes of all men, of the whole world, as a remarkable evidence of God's love, from the Lord of hosts, which dwelleth in Mount Zion. Jesus, through His Word, as proclaimed by the mouth of His servants, gains those whom the Father has given Him and will, on the Last Day, present this entire host to the Father in the temple of heaven. Cf Heb_2:13. We are kept by the power of God, through faith, unto salvation. The prophet now adds a strong warning against necromancy and spiritism.
v. 19. And when they, the unbelieving people, shall say unto you, in endeavoring to coax the faithful away from the truth of the revealed Word, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, asserting that they possess the ability of interviewing departed souls, and unto wizards that peep and that mutter, said of the murmuring noises made in imitation of the shades in the realm of death and of the whispering of magical formulas which they claimed to have received from disembodied spirits, just as the modern tribe of spiritists does: Should not a people, so the Lord indignantly asks, seek unto their God? turning to Him for counsel and assistance in every emergency in life, for the living to the dead? How can men be so foolish as to seek help from the dead? as the spiritists insist that they are quoting the spirits of the departed. Over against this blasphemous foolishness the Lord places His urgent summons:
v. 20. To the Law and to the testimony! Turn to the Word and the promises of the Lord alone; trust in His Gospel, in the glorious assurance of salvation contained therein; make the clear exposition of His Word the one guide of your lives! If they, the unbelieving majority, speak not according to this word, if they do not join in this call and invitation nor heed its summons, it is because there is no light in them, the dawn of salvation will not arise for them. He who sets aside, ignores, rejects, the Word of God destroys himself, has no hope for time and for eternity.
v. 21. And they, the unbelievers, shall pass through it, walking about in the land, hardly bestead, oppressed both from within and without, and hungry, in the very depths of misery; and it shall come to pass that when they shall be hungry, in the midst of tribulation besetting them on every hand, they shall fret themselves, be filled with a helpless rage, and curse their King and their God, blaspheming the Lord and His Messiah, and look upward.
v. 22. And they shall look unto the earth, seeking alleviation and deliverance from their affliction, and behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish, not one ray of relief and salvation penetrating the night of their suffering; and they shall be driven to darkness, cast out into utter darkness. Such is the punishment of God upon the unbelievers, upon those who reject the Messiah, even here on earth; how much more terrible, then, will the condemnation of eternity be into which the present punishment will merge!