Isaiah 37:23

Isa_37:23

Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed?

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Isaiahs saving idea of God

Isaiah in his day saved Jerusalem by teaching the people a better idea of their God. For forty years he had been witnessing to a truer thought of God, and at last the crisis and the triumph of his religious statesmanship came. Jerusalem would have surrendered to Assyria had not Isaiah at last brought king and people, in their despair, to the faith in God to which for forty years he had borne witness. At an hour when the Assyrian was making his rapid march towards the city, two props of the peoples confidence had entirely given way: their reliance upon Egypt, and their confidence in their religion. Isaiah had told them over and over again that these supports were rotten, and would give way when the crash came. And they did when at last came the scourge of the nations which had swept other cities before it reached Jerusalem. For a moment the luridness of the popular despair was lit up by a wild light of passion and revelry: Let us eat and drink, they said, for to-morrow we shall die. Then the hour for the triumph of the prophets lifelong truth was come. He led a sobered people and a humbled king to the Holy One of Israel (Newman Smyth, D. D.)

The Divine holiness and Fatherhood

The historic truth is that wherever a better idea of God prevails men are delivered. The deep, permanent, at all times greatly needed lesson is, that the prophets truer teaching of God is for the salvation of a city. The subject for us to inquire concerning is, whether we are being saved by any truer, stronger ideas of our God? Are we saving our society, our neighbour-hood, our city, our land by nobler knowledge of God?

1. Do you hope to work out the redemption of men by education? It is a means, a sharp instrument for good or evil, but Rabshakeh could blaspheme in two languages. We have to face the question: What leaven is to keep the school itself from moral corruption?

2. But much, it is said, may be accomplished through sanitary and political science. Undoubtedly. Even Ahaz did a good thing when he looked after the water supply of Jerusalem in fear of a siege, although he would not hear a word that Isaiah was saying to him by the upper pool in the fullers field. But if Isaiah had not been the heart and the soul of the city in its critical hour, all the work that the kings had done in repairing the walls and looking after the watercourses, would never have kept the Assyrian out. Sooner or later we shall have to go down to the God on whom we depend, if we are to build anything of permanent worth.

3. What, then, is our better saving thought of God?

(1) We are coming to know better the Divine Fatherhood of men.

(2) Yet, this first truth of the Divine Fatherhood of men, and His special Fatherhood towards the son of His trust and love, does not exhaust our redeeming knowledge of God. Our text exalts the Holy One of Israel. Isaiahs vision of Him whose glory fills the whole earth was the vision of the Holy One. In the holiness of the prophet saw the falsehoods of the court and the people burning as with everlasting fire. And when Jesus Christ in that sublime moment to which St. John has borne witness in the seventeenth chapter of his Gospel, summed up His whole lifelong teaching in His last prayer for the disciples, He lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said, Father, Holy Father, O righteous Father.

(3) There is one way in particular by which we, with all our worldliness, may be brought more fully into the saving power of these truths of God. It is through our increasing sense of Gods omnipresence, of the Divine immanence, of Immanuel, God with us. (Newman Smyth, D. D.)

God His peoples defence

A magistrate in Hamburg once held up his finger and said to Mr. Oncken, the Baptist preacher: Do you see that finger, sir? As long as I can hold up that finger I shall put you down. I can see, said Mr. Oncken, what you cannot see; I can see the mighty arm of God, and as long as that arm is held up for my defence, you will never be able to put me down. (Christian Age.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

37:23 Whom . . . Against whom: Sennacherib’s speech was not so much an insult against Judah as it was against the Lord.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Declaring hereby that they that are enemies to God’s Church, fight against him whose quarrel his Church only maintaineth.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Whom--not an idol.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 23. Against the Holy One of Israel.] For אל el, to, the other copy has על al, against, rather more properly.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(23) Whom hast thou reproached . . .—The manifold iteration of the question emphasises the force of the answer. The “Holy One of Israel,” at whom the scornful revellers had sneered (Isa_30:11), was now seen to be the one mighty deliverer.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

23. “What sort of being is He whom thou hast defied?” The first two sentences are rhetorical questions, and require no answer. The last sentence is to be read as an affirmation: Yea, thou hast lifted up thine eyes to the height against the Holy One of Israel. To “lift up the voice” means here to speak proudly, not as often to cry aloud (e.g. ch. Isa_13:2).

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

I have digged, and drunk water,.... In places where he came, and found no water for his army, he set his soldiers to work, to dig cisterns, as the Targum, or wells, so that they had water sufficient to drink; in Kg2 19:24, it is "strange waters", which were never known before:

and with the sole of my feet have I dried up all the rivers of the besieged places; or, as the Targum,

"with the soles of the feet of the people that are with me;''

the Syriac version, "with the hoofs of my horses": with which he trampled down banks of rivers, and pools, and cisterns of water; signifying the vast numbers of his soldiers, who could drink up a river, or carry it away with them, or could turn the streams of rivers that ran by the sides, or round about, cities besieged, and so hindered the carrying on of a siege, and the taking of the place; but he had ways and means very easily to drain them, and ford them; or to cut off all communication of the water from the besieged. Some render it, "I have dried up all the rivers of Egypt" (s), as Kimchi, on Kg2 19:24, observes, and to be understood hyperbolically; see Isa 19:6, so Ben Melech observes.

(s) "omnes rivos Aegypti", Vitringa.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

When hast thou reproached? - Not an idol. Not one who has no power to take vengeance, or to defend the city under his protection, but the living God.

Exalted thy voice - That is, by thy messenger. Thou hast spoken in a loud, confident tone; in the language of reproach and threatening.

And lifted up thine eyes on high - To lift up the eyes is an indication of haughtiness and pride. He had evinced arrogance in his manner, and he was yet to learn that it was against the living and true God.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

23. Whom… blasphemed — Not a senseless idol, like the gods you boast of as being superior to Him, as you will soon know to your harm.

Against whom… exalted thy voice — That is, by Rabshakeh’s speaking to the people on the walls, in a loud and confident tone.

Lifted up thine eyes on high — Descriptive of the haughty and arrogant air assumed against the living and true God.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Even against the Holy One of Israel. A specially Isaiah phrase, employed by Isaiah twenty-eight times, and only five times in all the rest of Scripture. A strong proof, if any proof beyond the unmistakable Isaiah spirit of the entire prophecy were needed, of the genuineness of the present passage.

"Holy One of Israel.

It is singular to find the holiness of God introduced here rather than his majesty or his power. Yet it is significant. The sublime greatness of God is his character, and this is expressed in the word "Holy One." The insults of Assyria are not levelled so much against God"s throne, or God"s rule, as against God himself. It is the insult offered to the Divine Name. The contrast between Jehovah and the gods created by heathen imaginations is very striking in this particular they are embodiments of powers; he is a moral Being. They imply force; his Name involves character. Our security lies in this. The possibility of a reasonable trust lies in this. Our conviction of Jehovah"s sensitiveness to what troubles us lies in this. The full suggestions of this most suggestive name for God may be drawn out under these divisions.

I THE GOD WHO ALWAYS DOES THE MORALLY RIGHT.

II THE GOD WHO ALWAYS RESPONDS TO TRUST.

III THE GOD WHO IS EVER FAITHFUL TO HIS PROMISE.

IV THE GOD WHO IS JEALOUS OF HIS PERSONAL HONOUR.

V THE GOD WHO REQUIRES TO BE SERVED WITH OUR GOODNESS.

On the jealousy of the Divine Name, see Eze_36:22, Eze_36:23; and show how the views of God, thus unfolded, become the basis for the great atonement, whereby the world is redeemed. The "just God" is also the "Saviour. R.T.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

“Whom hast thou reproached and reviled, and against Whom hast thou raised (thy) voice, and lifted thine eyes (on) high towards (or against) the Holy One of Israel?” This is equivalent to saying, dost thou know Who it is that thou revilest? To raise the voice may simply mean to speak, or more emphatically to speak boldly, perhaps with an allusion to the literal loudness of Rabshakeh’s address to the people on the wall (Isa 36:13). The construction loftiness of eyes (meaning pride) is inconsistent both with the pointing and accentuation. The English and many other versions make the last words of the second clause an answer to the foregoing question. (Against whom? Against the Holy One of Israel.) But the other construction is more natural.

Joseph Addison Alexander, The Prophecies of Isaiah (1846–1847; New York: Scribner, 1870–1878) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.