*H Thus saith the Lord: What is this bill of the divorce of your mother, with which I have put her away? or who is my creditor, to whom I sold you: behold you are sold for your iniquities, and for your wicked deeds have I put your mother away.
Ver. 1. Away. Such a one could not be received again, if she had taken another husband. Deut. xxiv. 3. Some explain this of the captives. But God restored them to favour. It seems rather to relate to the reprobation (C.) of the synagogue, which will never again become the true Church, (H.) though many of Israel will be converted. Rom. xi. 25. — Sold you, as a father might do. Ex. xxi. 1. Mat. xviii. 15. S. Ambrose (Tob. viii.) inveighs against such cruel parents, as the Christian religion had not then entirely repressed this inhumanity. C. — God rejected the synagogue, not out of hard-heartedness or want, but because of her sins. W.
*H Because I came, and there was not a man: I called, and there was none that would hear. Is my hand shortened and become little, that I cannot redeem? or is there no strength in me to deliver? Behold at my rebuke I will make the sea a desert, I will turn the rivers into dry land: the fishes shall rot for want of water, and shall die for thirst.
Ver. 2. Hear. My spouse had gone after other lovers. The people refused to hear the prophets; and the priests were become as corrupt as the rest, when the city was taken by the Chaldees and by the Romans. C. — Sea. Babylon. C. xxi. H. — I could work the same miracles, as I did when Israel came out of Egypt.
*H The Lord hath given me a learned tongue, that I should know how to uphold by word him that is weary: he wakeneth in the morning, in the morning he wakeneth my ear, that I may hear him as a master.
Ver. 4. Weary. Isaias speaks in the name of Christ, whose words carried conviction and comfort along with them. Jo. vi. 69. and vii. 46. C. — Wakeneth. Lit. "lifteth up." Cynthius âurem—Vellit. Ec. vi. — Hear, or obey. H. — Christ preached more powerfully than Isaias, and continues to do so by his pastors. S. Jer. W.
*H I have given my body to the strikers, and my cheeks to them that plucked them: I have not turned away my face from them that rebuked me, and spit upon me.
Ver. 6. Spit. The greatest indignity. Job xxx. 10. Deut. xxv. 9. Yet this was the treatment of our Saviour. Lu. xviii. 31. Mat. xxvi. 67. C. — "The great Grotius, (I wish he were great in explaining the prophets)" applies this to Jeremias. Houbigant.
* Footnote * Matthew 26 : 67
Then did they spit in his face and buffeted him. And others struck his face with the palms of their hands,*H The Lord God is my helper, therefore am I not confounded: therefore have I set my face as a most hard rock, and I know that I shall not be confounded.
Ver. 7. Rock. Christ heard the accusations of his enemies unmoved, as he had not been afraid to blame the conduct of the Pharisees.
* Footnote * Romans 8 : 33
Who shall accuse against the elect of God? God is he that justifieth:*H Who is there among you that feareth the Lord, that heareth the voice of his servant, that hath walked in darkness, and hath no light? let him hope in the name of the Lord, and lean upon his God.
Ver. 10. Light. The faithful are exhorted to take courage, while the Romans will destroy the rebellious Jews, (v. 11. C.) and the wicked shall dwell in hell fire. M.