Isaiah 58 - Introduction

The prophet, being sent to reprove hypocrisy, expresseth a counterfeit fast, and a true: he declareth what promises are due unto godliness, and to the keeping of the sabbath.

Before Christ 699.

THE seventh section, contained in this and Isaiah 58:1 of the following chapter, is divided into two reproofs; the former of which contains, first, a redargutory, and secondly, a doctrinal part, subservient to the redargutory one. In the former we have, first, the voice or command of God to his faithful ministers to convict his nominal people of the manifest vices prevailing among them, Isaiah 58:1. Secondly, the argument of this reproof, where the state of the people is described with respect to their external worship and regard for religion, Isaiah 58:2 and with regard to the opinion which, hypocritical as they were, they held respecting this worship, particularly their fasts, Isaiah 58:3. Thirdly, a reproof adapted to this argument; in which God sets before the people the faults committed in their worship, and particularly in their fasts: middle of Isaiah 58:3. In the doctrinal part God declares, by three particulars, the true method of worshipping him, and of observing fasts, and subjoins the benefits and privileges of grace which should attend this true and proper worship. First article, Isaiah 58:6.; the second, middle of Isaiah 58:9.; the third, Isaiah 58:13. In the latter reproof the faithful teachers of the church first demonstrate that the miserable state of the oppressed people is not owing to God, but that the true cause of it is their own sins and vices; chap. 59: Isaiah 58:1. Secondly, they enumerate particularly those crimes and vices; Isaiah 58:3. Then follows a lamenting and supplicatory part, setting forth the consequences of those vices; wherein the calamitous state of the church, reduced to extremity, and deluded with vain hopes, is described, Isaiah 58:9.; and the same is repeated in a confessional supplication to God. There is nothing very difficult in this section, which is connected with that preceding, as the nature of the event is also connected; while, as before, though the prophesy relates to the times of Christianity, the ideas are taken from the state of things under the old oeconomy. The object of the prophesy, says Vitringa, is the people of the new oeconomy, after the beginning of the reformation, declining from their profession, and falling from their first faith.