Isaiah 18:4

I will take my rest, I will sit still, and not bestir myself, either to help this people, or to hinder their enemies. God is said in Scripture to rest or sit still, when he doth not work on the behalf of a person or people; as, on the contrary, he is said to bestir himself when he acts for them. I will consider; or, I will contemplate or look upon them, to wit, the people of whom I am here speaking. So it is only an ellipsis of the pronoun. Now God's looking in Scripture is variously used; sometimes in way of favour and mercy, as Psalms 25:18 Isaiah 66:2, &c.; and sometimes in a way of anger and judgment, as Exodus 14:24 Psalms 25:19, and, as I humbly conceive, in this place. I know some learned men render this and the next word, I will look upon my dwelling-place, and interpret the place of God's gracious respect to his church or people, to preserve and deliver it in the midst of all the confusions and combustions that happen in the world; which interpretation seems altogether unsuitable to the scope and business of the chapter, which in all the foregoing and following verses speaks of another sort of people, even of the Egyptians or Ethiopians, of whom therefore this verse also must be understood, or otherwise we make a breach in the context. In my dwelling place; in heaven, the place where God dwells, and where he is said to hear prayers, 1 Kings 8:30,32, as here to consider men and things as elsewhere he is said to hear and to look from heaven, as 2 Chronicles 6:21 Isaiah 63:15; the Hebrew particles beth, in, and mern, from, being put promiscuously one for another, as hath been noted before. Like a clear heat upon herbs, and like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest. The sense is, that God would look upon them, as the sun with a clear heat looks upon herbs, &c. But this may be understood either,

1. In way of mercy, as most take it. And so the sense is, that God would look out and shine forth upon his church and people, and be as comfortable and refreshing to them as the clear heat which shines upon the herbs; or, as others render it, after the rain; or, as a cloud of dew is in the heat harvest. Or,

2. In way of judgment. And so the sense, that God would look upon them with as uncomfortable an influence as the sun with a clear heat upon the herbs, which are scorched and killed by it; and as a cloud of the dew, which brings dew or rain, in the heat of harvest, when it is unwelcome and hurtful. And this sense seems best to agree with the following verse, which continueth the metaphor of a harvest, and manifestly speaks not of refreshing, but of the destruction of the fruits thereof.