Isaiah 7:20

In the same day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired

The hired razor

There is involved the bitterest sarcasm for Ahaz; the cheap knife which he had hired for the deliverance of Judah is hired by the Lord in order to shave Judah wholly and most shamefully.

(F. Delitzsch.)

Shaving the beard

The most shameful of all. The beard is the sign of manly vigour, manliness, and manly dignity. (F. Delitzsch.)

The Lord’s razor

The Bible is the boldest book ever written. There are no similitudes in Ossian or the Iliad or the Odyssey so daring. Its imagery sometimes seems on the verge of the reckless, but only seems so. The fact is that God would startle and arouse men and nations. A tame and limping similitude would fail to accomplish the object. While there are times when He employs in the Bible the gentle dew and the morning cloud and the dove and the daybreak in the presentation of truth, we often find the iron chariot, the lightning, the earth quake, the sword and, in my text, the razor. This keen-bladed instrument has advanced in usefulness with the ages. In Bible times and lands the beard remained uncut save in the seasons of mourning and humiliation, but the razor was always a suggestive symbol. David says of Doeg, his antagonist: “Thy tongue is a sharp razor working deceitfully that is, it pretends to clear the face, but is really used for deadly precision.

I. If God’s judgments are razors, WE HAD BETTER BE CAREFUL HOW WE USE THEM ON OTHER PEOPLE. In careful sheath the domestic weapons are put away, where no one by accident may touch them, and where the hands of children may not touch them. Such instruments must be carefully handled or not handled at all. But how recklessly some people wield the judgments of God. If a man meet with business misfortune, how many there are ready to cry out, “This is a judgment of God upon him because he was unscrupulous, or arrogant, or over reaching, or miserly.” How I do dislike the behaviour of those persons who, when people are unfortunate, say: “I told you so--getting punished--served him right!” With air sometimes supercilious and sometimes Pharisaical, and always blasphemous, they take the razor of Divine judgment and sharpen it on their own hard hearts, and then go to work on men sprawled out at full length under disaster, cutting mercilessly. They begin by soft expressions of sympathy and pity and half praise, and lather the victim all over before they put on the sharp edge.

II. Again, when I read in my text that the Lord shaves, with the hired razor of Assyria, the land of Judea, I bethink myself of THE PRECISION OF GOD’S PROVIDENCE. A razor swung the tenth part of an inch out of the right line means either failure or laceration, but God’s dealings never slip, and they do not miss, by the thousandth part of an inch, the right direction.

III. Further, my text tells us that GOD SOMETIMES SHAVES NATIONS. “In the same day shall the Lord shave with the razor that is hired.” With one sharp sweep He went across Judah, and down went its pride and its power. Assyria was the hired razor against Judah, and Cyrus the hired razor against Babylon, and the Huns the hired razor against the Goths, and there are now many razors that the Lord could hire if, because of our national sins, He should undertake to shave us.

IV. But notice that God is so kind and loving, that WHEN IT IS NECESSARY FOR HIM TO CUT, HE HAS TO GO TO OTHERS FOR THE SHARP-EDGED WEAPON. “In the same day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired.” God is love. God is pity. God is help. God is shelter. God is rescue. There are no sharp edges about Him, no thrusting points, no instruments of laceration. If you want balm for wounds, He has that. If you want salve for Divine eyesight, He has that. But if there is sharp and cutting work to do, which requires a razor, that He hires. God has nothing about Him that hurts, save when dire necessity demands, and then He has to go to someone else to get the instrument. (T. De W. Talmage, D. D.)

Allies and razors

You thought you were buying an ally when you were only hiring a razor by which you were to be rendered naked and made contemptible. (J. Parker, D. D.)

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