Isaiah 1

How the faithful city has become a prostitute! She was full of justice. Righteousness lodged in her, but now there are murderers. Wesley: Jerusalem, faithful in former reigns; an harlot filled with idolatry; murderers names all unrighteous practice under one gross kind.

“City”—Jerusalem. Lodging of righteousness, fall. The whoredom is idolatry and blood in her gates.

Calvin: astonishment joined with grief. The Church is the wife of God; Jerusalem held that rank while she kept spiritual chastity. Murderers: not only assassins, but men who under pretense of justice gained a neighbor’s property.

A monstrous revolt from pledged allegiance. On this both agree: faithful, then whore; justice, then murderers.

Your silver has become dross, your wine mixed with water. The metal still shines; the cup still looks like wine. The city has not yet been openly overturned.

Debasement they can still see if they will. Hypocrisy keeps the color. The smelting of v. 25 will not be a fake warning.

Calvin: two comparisons: dross instead of gold, wine that keeps its color and has lost its flavor. Outward affairs not yet overthrown, yet the condition widely different. Hypocrites assume a false color of silver.

God is not fooled by the sheen. Dross, mixed wine. Princes are next.

Your princes are rebels and friends of thieves; all of them love bribes; the fatherless get no justice, and the widow’s cause never comes before them. Wesley: rebellious against their sovereign Lord; companions of thieves by connivance and by the same violence; gifts are bribes that pervert justice.

Rulers in Judah’s gates, choices. The ignored widow of 1:17 is still ignored. These are named thieves.

Calvin: he points to the source of the evil. No disease worse than what spreads from the head. Companions of thieves: by taking part of the booty they grant permission to steal. A judge corrupted by a bribe cannot but let crimes abound.

Avarice has unbound the city. Common ground: rebels, bribes, fatherless, widow.

Therefore the Lord, the Lord of Armies, the Mighty One of Israel, says: Ah, I will get relief from my adversaries, and avenge myself on my enemies. The city’s own rebels are now named His enemies.

After ignored widow and loved bribe, the Mighty One speaks.

Calvin: having shown the crime, He takes the names that mark power enough to avenge. Those who wasted the city are treated as adversaries of God, not merely of the poor.

The mouth that offered snow (1:18) now eases Himself of foes. Lord of hosts, Mighty One, enemies, foes.

I will turn my hand on you, thoroughly purge away your dross, and will take away all your alloy. Wesley: purge out the incorrigible; for those who are curable, by my word and by the furnace of affliction, purge out the corruption that yet remains.

The furnace sorts two kinds of people under one hand. Wesley says the incorrigible are removed and the curable are cleansed by the word and by affliction. Arminians add that the cleansing is God’s work, and the dross is what people cling to.

Calvin: an alleviation—the Church will be preserved. Purification is God’s own work. Rods would be of no avail if He did not touch hearts inwardly. This is a special favor to His elect; repentance is a peculiar work of the Holy Spirit, or chastisement only hardens. Not that the Church is entirely without stain in this world, but her holiness will shine like pure silver.

The hand that turns does the purging. Both traditions hear God removing the dross and alloy as lye would.

I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning; afterward called The city of righteousness, a faithful town. Wesley: princes shall hearken to wise and faithful counselors; thou shalt be such.

An afterward for this city. The name she lost in v. 21 is spoken back. Judges are still men under the restored name.

Calvin: restoration of the Church in the city’s old titles. What men ruined in the gates, God puts back. The faithful name is His gift after the smelting, not a vote of the princes.

He names her righteous when He has purged.

Zion shall be redeemed with justice, and her converts with righteousness. Wesley: delivered from enemies by God’s righteous judgment, purging out the incorrigible; converts—her returners from captivity; righteousness is His faithfulness or His goodness.

A class in her—those who turn. The snow of 1:18 still meets a people who repent. Justice is the Lord’s; the repenting is not a purchase of it.

Calvin: restoration does not depend on the will of men but is founded on the justice of God. Do not look at yourselves for hope. It is a great mistake to take justice and judgment as the Church’s well-ordered civic life. They that return: dispersed exiles gathered again.

The returning is inside His justice, not a contribution to it. Zion redeemed, those who return. Rebels in v. 28 are the other half.

Rebels and sinners shall be together; those who forsake the Lord shall be consumed. The furnace has two ends. Wesley sees the land as incorrigible here.

Those who forsake the LORD will be consumed. The offer of snow did not make revolt imaginary.

Calvin: the same justice that redeems Zion breaks those who will not return. Special grace to the remnant does not cancel the breaking of the forsakers.

Effectual end of revolt. Rebels, sinners, forsake, consumed. Oaks are next.

They shall be ashamed of the oaks you desired, and blush for the gardens you have chosen. Wesley: oaks consecrated after the manner of the heathen to idolatry; gardens in which they committed idolatry.

Judah chose its sacred groves. Shame is theirs when the thing chosen cannot save.

Calvin: the objects of their desire become their disgrace. Chosen gardens: will-worship they picked. The blush is the Lord’s doing in the collapse of the idol.

He shames what they loved. Shared: oaks, gardens, desired, chosen.

You shall be as an oak whose leaf fades, and as a garden that has no water. The worshiper becomes the thing worshiped: dry leaf, dry plot.

A withering of people who chose the grove. Second causes still drink or thirst. The Lord who left survivors (1:9) can also dry a garden.

Calvin: they become what they trusted—an oak that cannot keep its leaf, a garden that cannot keep its spring. Judgment fits the idol.

The likeness is decreed, not accidental. Judah will become like a withered oak and a garden without water.

The strong will be like tinder, and his work like a spark. They will both burn together, and no one will quench them. Wesley: the strong are your idols, thought able to defend you; consumed as tow by fire; the maker of the idol can save neither himself nor his workmanship.

Idol and maker, Judah’s strength and its product. None to quench is the Lord’s last word in the chapter, not a slogan. Agency remains in the making; fire remains His.

Calvin: the mighty and what they wrought kindle each other. No quencher: when God lights this, neither prince nor idol puts it out.

The spark is in the work itself under His hand. Agreed on both sides: tinder, spark, burn, none to quench.