Isaiah 63:7-19

Isaiah 63:7 to Isaiah 64:12. A Prayer of the People for the Renewal of Jehovah's former Lovingkindness

(1) Isaiah 63:7. The prayer begins with thankful commemoration of Jehovah's goodness to the nation in the days of old (Isaiah 63:7). The reference is to the time of Moses and Joshua, when Jehovah's loving confidence in His children had not yet been betrayed (Isaiah 63:8), and when He continuously manifested Himself as their Saviour, bearing them safely through all dangers (Isaiah 63:9).

(2) Isaiah 63:10. This ideal relation between Israel and its God has indeed long since been broken, through the rebellion and ingratitude of the people (Isaiah 63:10). But in seasons of distress the better mind of the nation dwells wistfully on those ancient wonders of grace, and longs that Jehovah may again put forth His strength and vindicate His glorious name (Isaiah 63:11).

(3) Isaiah 63:15. From the past the writer turns to the gloomy present, be seeching Jehovah to take notice of and have compassion on the affliction of His people. For He alone, and not Abraham or Israel, is the Father of the nation, and its Redeemer from of old.

(4) Isaiah 63:17. From this point the increasing impetuosity of the language reveals for the first time the extremity of the Church's anguish. The prophet remonstrates with God for so withdrawing Himself from the people as to harden them in sin (Isaiah 63:17) and cause them to be as if He had never ruled over them (Isaiah 63:19).

(5) Isaiah 64:1-3. A passionate wish that Jehovah might now rend asunder the solid firmament, and melt the mountains, and make Himself known to the nation by terrible acts, surpassing the expectations of His people.

(6) Isaiah 63:4. In a more reflective strain the writer appears to seek for a reconciliation of Jehovah's attitude to Israel with His eternally righteous character. He, the only God known who meets the righteousman, is yet wroth with His people so that they fall into sin (Isaiah 63:4). The lamentable consequences of this hiding of God's face on the religious condition of the people are described in Isaiah 63:6.

(7) Isaiah 63:8. Final appeal to the Fatherhood of God, and His consideration for the work of His hands (Isaiah 63:8). Let Him moderate His wrath and remember that we are His people (Isaiah 63:9). For surely the punishment of sin has been sufficient, the holy cities ruined, Jerusalem a desolation, the Temple burned with fire (Isaiah 63:10). Can Jehovah look on these things and yet restrain His compassion (Isaiah 63:12)?

The passage is one of the most instructive of O.T. prayers, and deserves careful study as an expression of the chastened and tremulous type of piety begotten in the sorrows of the Exile. Along with much that is of the permanent essence of prayer, thanksgiving, confession of sin, and supplication, it contains utterances which may cause surprise to a Christian reader, although they are paralleled in some of the Psalms, and in other portions of the literature. Very singular is the plea that the sinfulness of the people is due to the excessive and protracted anger of Jehovah, who "causes them to err from His ways" (Isaiah 63:17; cf. Isaiah 64:5; Isaiah 64:7). This feeling appears to proceed from two sources; on the one hand the ancient idea that national calamity is the proof of Jehovah's anger, and on the other the lesson taught by all the prophets, that the sole cause of Jehovah's anger is the people's sins. The writer seems unable perfectly to harmonize these principles. He accepts the verdict of Providence on the sins of the nation, but he feels also a disproportion between the offence and the punishment, which neutralises all efforts after righteousness, unless Jehovah will relent from the fierceness of His wrath. The higher truth that the Divine chastisement aims at the purification of the people, and is therefore a mark of love, is not yet grasped, and for this reason the O.T. believers fall short of the liberty of the sons of God. Yet amid all these perplexities the faith of the Church holds fast to the truth of the Fatherhood of God, and appeals to the love which must be in His heart, although it be not manifest in His providential dealings.

So far as the ideasof the passage are concerned, it might have been composed at any time from the Exile downwards. Nor are the historical allusions so clear as could be desired. From Isaiah 63:18; Isaiah 64:11 f. we learn that the Temple has been burned, and the land laid waste. It is natural to understand this of the destruction of the city and Temple by the Chaldæans in 586, and to conclude that the prayer was written during the Exile or at least before the rebuilding of the Temple in 520. In Isaiah 63:18 it is said that the Holy Land has been possessed "but a little while." If the prayer was written in exile this must refer to the whole period from Joshua to the Captivity, which is not an interpretation that commends itself at first sight. It would no doubt be more intelligible if written not long after the restoration under Zerubbabel (cf. Ezra 9:8). But then we are confronted with the difficulty of the destruction of the Temple, for Duhm's explanation that the writer ignores the second Temple because of its inferiority to the first can hardly be regarded as satisfactory; and to assume (with Kuenen and others) a destruction of the Temple by the Samaritans (see Ryle's note on Nehemiah 1:3) is hazardous in face of the silence of history. Partly for these reasons, and partly because of affinities to ch. 24 27, and some Psalms which he assigns to the same period, Cheyne brings down the date of composition to the time of Artaxerxes Ochus (cf. Vol. i. of this commentary, p. 204). Apart from Isaiah 63:18, the hypothesis of exilic authorship presents no serious difficulty, for although the surrounding discourses are probably post-exilic, it is quite conceivable that an earlier writing might have been incorporated with them as sufficiently expressive of the mind of the nation at the later period.