The thinnest film of a non-conductor will stop the flow of the strongest electric current, and an almost imperceptible film of self-will and evil, dropped between oneself and God, will make a barrier impermeable except by that divine Spirit who worketh upon a man’s heart and who may thin away the film through his repentance, and then the Father and the prodigal embrace. In those is continuance, i.e. Let us learn from this, that we ought never to think of the chastisements which the Lord inflicts, without at the same time calling to mind our sins, that we may confess that we are justly punished, and may acknowledge our guilt. Browse Sermons on Isaiah 64:5-6. You meet him who rejoices in doing righteousness, Who remembers You in Your ways. Not to dwell on the many views of critics on the construction here, let it suffice to say that the probable meaning may be gained in a translation and paraphrase as follows: that rejoiced to work righteousness, when they remembered thee in thy ways. It’s true — gloriously true — that none of God’s people, before or after the cross, would be accepted by an immaculately holy God if the perfect righteousness of Christ were not imputed to us (Romans 5:19; 1 Corinthians 1:30; 2 Corinthians 5:21). However extreme the phrasing, the point is important. 3. But since he said that God was wont to “meet him that doeth righteousness,” the “remembrance” may relate to the practice of piety, that is, that they devoted themselves earnestly to the worship of God; and so it will be an explanation of the former clause, for the prophets frequently confirm by a variety of expressions what they have formerly said. The work that is worth doing, the work which God regards as ‘righteous,’ comes, and comes only, from the motives of ‘remembering Thee in Thy ways,’ and rejoicing because we do remember. God, like man, is known by His ‘fruits.’ You cannot get at a clear conception of God by speculation, or by thinking about Him or about what He is in Himself. In the fourth figure, עוננוּ (as it is also written in Isaiah 64:6 according to correct codices) is a defective plural (as in Jeremiah 14:7; Ezekiel 28:18; Daniel 9:13) for the more usual עונתינוּ (Isaiah 59:12). A. Verse Commentary on Isaiah 64:1-12. Reference to Pentateuch (Genesis 32:1). If we go about our daily work, however wearisome and vulgar and commonplace it often seems to us, and make it a work of righteousness resting on the joy of salvation, and that reposing on the contemplation of God as He is revealed in Jesus Christ, our daily work may bring us as close to God as if we dwelt in the secret place of the Most High, and the market and the shop may be a temple where we meet with Him. 6. μεν, Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers, Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament. [5] The interpretation of the first six verses has taken a number of directions. # 64.5 Meaning of Heb uncertain. This excited thy anger. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. But let the spring sunshine come, and then all the frost-bound earth opens and softens, and the tender green spikelets push themselves up through the brown soil, and in due time come ‘the blade, and the ear, and the full corn in the ear.’ Isaiah anticipated Paul when he said, ‘Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness.’. Isaiah 64:5 Translation & Meaning. God "remembered for them His covenant" (Psalms 106:45), though they often "remembered not" Him (Psalms 78:42). . Or, as some, by way of interrogation; in those, i.e. Thee. Dear brethren, there are two kinds of meeting God: ‘Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness,’ and that is blessed, as when Christ met the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. 3. The opposite state of mind-diligence in righteous work, inspired by gladness which in its turn is inspired by the remembrance of God’s ways-is the mark of a true servant of God. But remember, too, that the commonest, homeliest, smallest, most secular tasks may become the very highest steps of the staircase that brings us into His Presence. [4] Barnes also wrote that the chapter belongs where it is, and that, "It should not have been separated from Isaiah 64." And the leaves of the trees changing colors, each day. Isaiah 64:6 But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; … This chapter is a continuation of what? I explain what was really meant when Isaiah 64:6 says "all our righteous deeds are like filthy rags." But they hardly would use such a plea when their very object was to be saved. On that account I consider the preterite to be put for the future, for it is rather a wish or a prayer than an affirmation. 2. How did God manifest Himself to man soon after this? Howbeit he expecteth that we should go as far as we can naturally, if ever we look that he should meet us graciously. If I were asked why I would probably give a variety of answers such as: 1. Find Top Church Sermons, Illustrations, and Preaching Slides on Isaiah 64:4-5. .—The clause is difficult, and has been variously interpreted—(1) “In these (the ways of God) there is permanence (literally, eternity), that we may be saved;” and (2) “In these (the ways of evil) have we been a long time, and shall we be saved?” The latter seems preferable. Isaiah 64is a confident prayer for deliverance by the believing remnant. . Isaiah 64:5-9 New International Version (NIV) 5 You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways. 6. Their confidence is based on the LORD’s great demonstrations of power in the past. If we understand it to relate to “the ways of the Lord,” it will assign the reason why the people did not perish, because “the ways of the Lord” are steadfast and perpetual, and his mercy never comes to an end; and that meaning appears to me to agree best with this passage. 4. But note that word ‘Remember,’ for it suggests the warning that such contemplation of the ways of the Lord will not be realised by us without effort. 1. It is ‘those that remember Thee in Thy ways,’ and especially in that way of righteousness and peace, the way of the cross-it is they who have built the first flight of the solemn staircase that leads up from the lownesses and darknesses of earth into the loftinesses and lights of heaven. (5) Thou meetest him . THE CONTEXT Isaiah 56-66 is thought to be from the post-exilic phase—after Cyrus of Persia gave the Jewish exiles permission to return to Jerusalem and to rebuild the temple. And I think that we have largely lost the very thought that gladness is a plain Christian duty, to be striven after in the appropriate manner which my text suggests, and certainly to be secured if we seek it in the right way. 5.Not to dwell on the many views of critics on the construction here, let it suffice to say that the probable meaning may be gained in a translation and paraphrase as follows: Thou didst favorably meet him (singular for plural) that rejoiced to work righteousness, when they remembered thee in thy ways. Clear crisp weather. He wondered if there was any hope of Israel being saved, since she had sinned so much for so long, and since this sinning had angered God. There, and not in the thoughts of our own hearts nor the tremors of our own consciences, nor in the enigmatical witness of Providence-which is enigmatical until it is interpreted in the light of the Incarnation and the Crucifixion-there we see most clearly the ‘ways’ of God, the beaten, trodden path by which He is wont to come forth out of the thick darkness into which no speculation can peer an inch, and walk amongst men. Compare Isaiah 63:9, Isaiah 63:11, Isaiah 63:16, Isaiah 63:19. --- Sinned. Thou meetest him; or, wast wont to meet him; or, thou preventest him, Isaiah 65:24 Psalms 21:2,3, as the father the prodigal. The prophet here shows us how there is a great staircase which we ourselves build, which leads straight from earth to heaven, and how we can secure that we shall meet with God and God with us. This passage differs in several important ways from much of the previous material in the book of Isaiah (see The Unity and Authorship of Isaiah).Close examination … That meditative remembrance of the ways of God will be the parent of holy joy which will bring God near to our heart. He met, in this sense, those who at once rejoiced in righteousness and practised it. that rejoice to work righteousness; the same thing expressed by two words, by a figure called hendiadis. B. But in the verse just before this, Isaiah says that God approvingly meets “him who joyfully works righteousness” (Isaiah 64:5). This is applicable to the second coming of Christ, when the Lord himself shall descend from heaven. .—The “meeting” is obviously one of favour. Let me plead for times of quiet, for times of ‘doing’ nothing, for fruitful times of growth, for times when we turn all the rout and rabble of earthly things, and even the solemn company of pressing duties, out of our hearts and thoughts, and shut up ourselves alone with God. The people were robbed by their sins of all vital strength and energy, like dry leaves, which the guilt and punishment springing from sin carried off as a very easy prey. ς = dâvâ , Isaiah 30:22; niddâh , Lamentations 1:17; t e mē'âh , Leviticus 15:33). 7. Behold, You were angry, for we sinned, We continued in them a long time; And shall we be saved? Or, thou continuest to show mercy, and or therefore we shall be saved. The prayer of the church is continued in this chapter; in which she prays for some visible display of the power and presence of God, as in times past, Isaiah 64:1, and the rather, since unheard of and unseen things were prepared by the Lord for his people; and it was his usual way to meet those that were truly religious, Isaiah 64:4, and she acknowledges her sins and transgressions; … In those — Those ways of thine, thy ways of mercy, in which we have remembered thee; is continuance — Or, perpetuity; or, in those thou art ever to be found; and we shall be saved — At last, though thou art wroth, and we have sinned. עון is the usual term applied to sin regarded as guilt, which produces punishment of itself. The answer is, everyone will see them, because God will use them to teach a lesson to all men. 6 We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. “Formerly thou wast wont to meet the fathers, before they were distressed by any affliction, and to cheer them by thy approach; now thou art far distant, and permittest us to languish in mourning and grief.”. Their recalling the works of the LORD is followed by the acknowledgment of their complete sinfulness (5-8). Isaiah 64:5 Thou meetest H6293 him that rejoiceth H7797 and worketh H6213 righteousness, H6664 those that remember H2142 thee in thy ways: H1870 behold, thou art wroth H7107 ; for we have sinned H2398 : in those is continuance, H5769 and we shall be saved H3467 . ‘Thou meetest him that rejoiceth’; that joy is to be manifested by ‘working righteousness,’ but the joy which is the parent of righteousness is the child of something else-’those that remember Thee in Thy ways.’ If we ponder these words, and carefully mark their relation to each other, we may discern, as it were, a great staircase with three flights in it, and at the top God’s face. But when we continued to sin against them, you were angry. He is so, not only because of his predictions of the suffering Servant of Jehovah which are ‘fulfilled’ in Christ, but because his conceptions of the religious life tremble on the very verge of the full-orbed teaching of the New Testament. Isaiah 64:5 Thou meetest H6293 him that rejoiceth H7797 and worketh H6213 righteousness, H6664 those that remember H2142 thee in thy ways: H1870 behold, thou art wroth H7107 ; for we have sinned H2398 : in those is continuance, H5769 and we shall be saved H3467 . You remember our Lord’s parable where He traces idleness to fear: ‘I knew thee that thou wast an austere man, gathering where thou didst not strew, and I was afraid, and I went and hid thy talent.’ No work was got out of that servant because there was no joy in him. to those that work righteousness; in for to. They are the descriptions of our sinful condition (Isaiah 64:5b-7). If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good things of the land, [Isaiah 1:21] which that we may be, Nolentem praevenit Deus ut velit, volentem subsequitur ne frustra velit, (a) God worketh in us both to will and to do of his own good pleasure. But in face of them all, I would echo the old grand words of the epistle of gladness written by the apostle in prison, and within hail of his death: ‘Rejoice in the Lord alway, and again I say rejoice.’ Recognise it as your duty to be glad, and if it is hard to be so, ask yourselves whether you are doing what will make you so, remembering ‘Thee in Thy ways.’ That is the second flight of the staircase. John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, Keil & Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary, Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible, Joseph Benson's Commentary of the Old and New Testaments, George Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible - Unabridged, Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers, Alexander MacLaren's Expositions of Holy Scripture. But I prefer to take the words in their literal acceptation, as when David says that the Lord “is not angry but for a moment,” (Psalms 30:5,) that he is easy to be reconciled, and always compassionate; for his anger is not suddenly kindled, or with immoderate rage, after the manner of men, but he is unchangeable in benevolence and favor. Thou art wroth; for we have sinned: or, greatly angry; for or because we have sinned, and provoked thee to wrath thereby, 1 Kings 8:46. Requesting and remembering God’s great works 1. Unless you try to remember, you will certainly forget. Isaiah 63:7 - 64:12 is a lengthy prayer of Clear crisp weather. But with Israel it was not so. If I were asked what I thought to be the most beautiful season of the year most likely I would say autumn. It is there, and there only, that the thick darkness passes into glorious light. If I were pressed to point out what the major … He proceeds with the same subject; for the people deplore their hard lot, that they feel no alleviation in their adversity, although formerly God was wont to stretch out the hand to the fathers. You may try to coerce their wills, and your strongest bands will be broken as the iron chains were by the demoniac. 5. We have to begin with the last clause of our text-’Thou meetest him . in our sins, is continuance, and shall we be saved? Biblical Commentary Isaiah 64:1-9 EXEGESIS: ISAIAH 63:7 - 64:12. Isaiah 64:5 Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, [those that] remember thee in thy ways: behold, thou art wroth; for we have sinned: in those is continuance, and we shall be saved. This shows the English words related to the source biblical texts along with brief definitions. That doth thy work diligently and with delight; that being acted by thee, acteth vigorously for thee. (Read Isaiah 64:1-5) They desire that God would manifest himself to them and for them, so that all may see it. Isaiah 64:6, ESV: "We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. As Lowth pointed out, "Many interpreters suppose that Judas Maccabeus is prophesied here"; but he concluded. What does this verse really mean? col. 271). The prophet’s words have the germ of the full New Testament doctrine that the first step to all practical obedience and righteous living is the recognition of the great truth of Christ’s death for us on the Cross; that the second step is the acceptance of that great work, and the gladness that comes from the assurance of forgiveness and acceptance with God, and that the issue of both these things, the preached gospel and the faith that grasps it and the love by which the faith is followed, is obedience, instinct with willingness and buoyant with joyfulness, and therefore tending to be perfect in degree and in kind. The doctrine of total depravity is taught clearly elsewhere in Scripture (e.g., Ephesians 2:1–5), and the illustration of Isaiah 64:6 could rightly be applied to the whole world, especially given Isaiah’s inclusion of himself in the description. those is continuance = those [ways of Thine] is continuance. and Explanation of Isaiah 64 . In those is continuance . Rip the heavens apart!Come down, Lord;make the mountains tremble. "remember His ways," i.e, to walk in them. Protestants, "for we have sinned." Birds gathering to leave for the winter. 7 No one … We shall forget, assuredly, unless we earnestly try to ‘remember.’ There are so many things within us to draw us away, the duties, and the joys, and the sorrows of life so insist upon having a place in our hearts and thoughts, that assuredly, unless by resolute effort, frequently repeated, we clear a space in this crowded and chattering market-place, where we can stand and gaze on the white summits far beyond the bustling crowd, we shall never see them, though they are visible from every place. (Worthington). ", Behold, thou art wroth; for we have sinned - literally, tripped, or slipped ( necheTaa' (Hebrew #2398)), carrying on the figure in "ways.". This seems to be the sense of this obscure passage; at least it will bear this sense; and, as it is in perfect consistency with the general tenor of the Scriptures, it is certainly safer to admit it, unless a better can be proposed, than to have recourse to any mere conjectural alterations of the Hebrew text. Same word as "since the beginning" in Isaiah 64:4. Yet even they repeatedly fell into idol worship and God had to discipline them. Previously the wicked asked, “Who will see them?” (Psalm 64:5). Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, those that remember thee in thy ways: behold, thou art wroth; for we have sinned: in those is continuance, and we shall be saved. It is at that point alone that the closed circle of the Infinite nature of Deity opens so as that a man can press into the very centre of the glory, and feel himself at home in the blaze. ISAIAH 64:5-7 INTRODUCTION: 1. Denomination: Catholic. Be saved — In so doing, in working righteousness. Introduction. We all know how outward cares, and petty annoyances, and crushing sorrows, and daily anxieties, and the tear and wear of work, and our own restlessness and ungovernableness, and the faults that still haunt our lives, and sometimes make us feel as if our Christianity was all a sham-how all these things are at enmity with joy in God. Alas! Tantum velis, et Deus tibi praeoccurret, saith an ancient, as the prodigal’s father met him upon the way. It is not, however, from nâbhēl = vannabbel , “with the reduplication dropped to express the idea of something gradual,” as Böttcher proposes (a new and arbitrary explanation in the place of one founded upon the simple laws of inflexion), but either from bâlal (compare the remarks on belı̄l in Isaiah 30:24, which hardly signifies “ripe barley” however), after the form ויּגל (from גּלל ) ויּס ך (from סכ ך ), or from būl , after the form ויּקם, etc. Find Top Church Sermons, Illustrations, and Preaching Slides on Isaiah 64:5-6. Isaiah 64:5, ESV: "You meet him who joyfully works righteousness, those who remember you in your ways.Behold, you were angry, and we sinned; … Isaiah Chapter 64 Questions. Thou meetest him = Thou didst meet him. Isaiah is referring to people whose righteousness is in fact hypocritical. To walk in thy ways, whether of providence, precept, or counsel, by virtue of the covenant they have with thee. Click here to: A Prayer of Hope Verse Commentary on Isaiah 64:1-12. When is it an automatic thing for water to boil? Believers, therefore, speak in this manner: “Thou wast wont to meet our fathers; now thy face is turned away from us; and thou appearest to be irreconcilable:, because we gain nothing by calling on thee. If this be put in the present tense, as it may be, it would read to us a general truth, useful to all: Behold, thou — gracious as thou art — wast angry, for we were guilty. Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness. Isaiah 64:6 Parallel Verses [⇓ See commentary ⇓] Isaiah 64:6, NIV: "All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away." In accordance with what he has now said, he adds that they “remembered God,” because they enjoyed his present grace, and felt that he was the author and director of their salvation; and so by “the ways of God,” he means prosperity; either that in this way he was near to them, when he treated them softly and gently as his children, or because God is by nature inclined to acts of kindness. in so doing, in working righteousness. (Those that) remember thee in thy ways - (Isaiah 26:8.) 2. (Isaiah 64:5-7) Thus, collective Israel’s righteousness was like filthy rags because they had sinned, continued in sin, and become like an unclean thing in their apostasy. He always waits to be gracious, and through all ages meets his worshippers in his ordinances. ‛Iddı̄m (used thus in the plural in the Talmud also) signifies the monthly period ( menstrua ). God comes to such a man. It begins with a plea for the LORD to intervene to deliver His people in His characteristically powerful way (1-4). First this was directed at Israel. ISAIAH 64:5-7 INTRODUCTION: 1. . That was the law of God’s dealings with men. And we have sinned. Now, the second flight of this great staircase is pointed out in the first clause of my text: ‘Thou meetest him that rejoiceth.’. The people who ask the question in Isaiah 64:5 do not regard themselves as worthy of redemption, as their self-righteousness has been so thoroughly put to shame.

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