Isaiah 33:14

The sinners in Zion are afraid: this is spoken, not of the Assyrians, as some would have it, but of the Jews, as appears both from the words themselves, and from the following verses. The prophet having foretold the deliverance of God's people, and the destruction of their enemies, Isaiah 33:10, for the greater illustration of that wonderful mercy, here returns to the description, and gives a lively representation of the dismal and frightful condition in which the Jews, especially such of them as were ungodly and unbelieving, were before this deliverance came. Although the godly Jews were, in some measure, supported by the sense of God's favour, and by God's promises delivered to them by Isaiah; yet the generality of the people were filled with horrors, and expectation of utter destruction. Who amongst us shall dwell with everlasting burnings ? how shall we be able to abide the presence, and endure or avoid the wrath, of that God, who is a consuming fire; who is now about to destroy us utterly by the Assyrians, and will afterwards burn us with unquenchable fire? For seeing it is sufficiently evident, from both Old and New, Testament, as hath been formerly observed and proved, that the Jews, except the Sadducees, did generally believe the rewards and punishments of the future live and these temporal judgments, as they did frequently cut men off from this life, so they transmitted them into that future and endless life; it is not strange if their guilty consciences made them dread both the present judgment here, and the terrible consequences of it hereafter. Heb. who shall dwell for us, &c., i.e. in our stead? who will interpose himself between God's anger and us? How shall we escape these miseries? That this is the sense of this question may be gathered from the answer given to it in the following verse; in which he directs them to the right course of removing God's wrath, and regaining his favour.