Isaiah 28

Wesley’s heading for these verses is their mock at God’s threatening. Hear is spoken to scornful men who actually rule this people in Jerusalem—Judah’s court, not a cipher. The word comes after the rest they would not hear (v. 12); scoffing is the next will, not a stage direction.

Rulers can still hear. The charge is eighth-century Jerusalem, priests’ sister-city now answering in jeers. Grace that spared Judah after Ephraim’s fall (vv. 5–6) is a sincere call; they mock it.

Calvin: he addresses not ordinary men but rulers and governors, addicted to sophistry and deceit, who think that by jeers and cunning they can escape the judgment of God. Their guilt is aggravated because they inhabit the very sanctuary of God and infect with their pollution God’s chosen people.

Office is no shelter. Instruction would be of little use; the prophet threatens. Jerusalem’s nobles are the scoffers of that generation. The church reads a court under the word.”

Wesley: said—in your hearts. We are as safe from death, and hell, or the grave, as if they had entered into covenant with us. The scourge is the judgment of God through the land; for—we shall secure ourselves by lying and dissimulation. The treaty is a heart-boast, not a document God countersigns.

They chose the lie as refuge. Creaturely cunning does not cancel the scourge. The church is to refuse both despair and the habit of renaming this covenant every generation.

Calvin: they never broke out into such childish boasting; the prophet looked at their feelings and aims, not their pretexts. Whoever flatters himself and his vices, and fearlessly despises God’s threatenings, declares that he has entered into a league with death. Carnal presumption forgets the judgment of God and takes lying and deceit for a hiding-place.

The compact is imaginary. Hypocrites think jeers can escape the arm of God.

Wesley: because your refuges are so vain and deceitful, I will direct you to a surer refuge, which God hath laid in Zion. I lay—I have promised it, and will, in the fulness of time, perform it. In Zion—in my church. A stone—the Messiah. Tried—approved as every way sufficient. Corner-stone—uniting the several parts of the building. Sure—upon whom you may securely rest. He that believeth this promise shall not hastily catch at any way of escaping danger, but shall patiently wait upon God in his way, till he deliver him.

Arminians hear the same Christ Wesley names. The stone is laid for Jerusalem’s scoffers in that century; belief is a living wait, not a scramble back into the covenant with death. The church rests on that tried stone. The Messiah is the refuge they would not take.

Calvin: Behold, I lay in Zion a stone, a stone of trial. He calls it a corner-stone because it supports the whole weight of the building—a fundamental foundation, not one of many. As another foundation cannot be laid, so on it alone must the whole Church rest and be built. The Apostles and evangelists shew that this stone is Christ. He that believeth shall not make haste: they who believe will have peace and serenity of mind, and shall not wander in uncertainty or hasten to seek other remedies.

God alone founds the church. Calvin takes the tried stone actively—a trier by which the house is squared. Christ is Zion’s stone while Judah’s scoffers still ran to lies.

Wesley: plummet—I will execute just judgment as by a line and plummet, with exactness and care; I will severely punish, and utterly destroy all who reject that stone. The line was used not only in erecting buildings but in pulling them down: the parts marked out for demolition. Hail and waters are the same storm as v. 2, now aimed at the liar’s shelter in Jerusalem.

Rejecting the cornerstone is a free refusal, and the plumb line is exact, not arbitrary. The refuge of lies can still be left; they will not. The verse stays with Judah’s hiding-place in that century.

Calvin: the Lord administers equal judgment when he restores the Church, trying everything by a rule. Hail shall sweep away the reliance of falsehood, and the flood will penetrate the hiding-places of thoughtless indifference. Hypocrites, with all their boasting, shall nevertheless perish, even though the Lord preserve the Church.

The line that builds on Christ is the line that pulls down the lie. The church is not the scoffers’ shelter; it is what remains when hail takes the refuge. Jerusalem’s falsehood is the thing swept.”

The treaty of v. 15 is cancelled in the same land it was boasted. Wesley’s “as safe from death and hell as if they had entered into covenant” is answered: the agreement will not stand. The overflowing scourge passes through, and they are trodden—Judah’s scoffers under the same kind of flood that took Ephraim’s crown.

A covenant they never had authority to sign cannot bind the scourge. Beaten down is the fruit of lying refuge, not a puppet-fall. The church hears eighth-century Jerusalem losing its deal with death, not a later nation slotted into “Sheol.”

Calvin: he now threatens that the Lord will arouse them from their sleep, however profound, and will annul their imaginary compacts. That peace which the wicked enjoy while they slumber in their sins will not be perpetual; they shall be compelled to acknowledge that God is their judge. When they wish to enjoy repose, they shall be seized and agitated by strange terrors.

The compact was never valid. God breaks what they only imagined. The scourge is his, and the treading is already in the word for Jerusalem’s unbelief.

Wesley: it shall not only come to you, but abide upon you; when it hath passed over you, it shall return again, morning after morning, and follow you day and night without the least respite. The report—so dreadful shall the judgment be, that it shall strike you with horror when you only hear the rumour of it.

The scoffers who would not hear rest (v. 12) will hear the rumour and shake. Repeated passing is repeated mercy refused, then repeated stroke in their own days. The message is still intelligible; terror is what understanding becomes once the scourge is in the land. This is Judah’s morning.

Calvin: destruction of the reprobate is close at hand, though they promise themselves everlasting happiness. The scourge will be constant and daily. Against believers the wrath of God is momentary; against unbelievers it is eternal, for it never ceases to pursue them. Terror alone shall cause them to understand the report: chastisements will teach what the word did not, and knowledge so late will leave no room for repentance.

Pharaoh and Esau are Calvin’s warnings that late terror is not always repentance. The church reads a people in Jerusalem who would not be instructed until the rumour itself was horror—without turning “morning by morning” into a later chart.

Wesley: those lying refuges to which you trust will not be able to give you that protection which you expect from them; no more than a man can stretch himself upon a bed that is too short for him. The covenant with death is a cot that will not fit the body when the scourge arrives.

They chose the bed. Stretching and wrapping are what the lie cannot do. Eighth-century Judah’s alliances and falsehoods are too small for the storm.

Calvin: he compares the reprobate, pressed down by the hand of God, to those concealed in a short and narrow bed, where instead of rest they feel sharp pains. The Jews will be shut up; the bed given to man for rest will be an instrument of torture. If they seek a covering, it will be too short; vengeance pursues them on all sides.

God drags them forth from hiding-places and hems them in. The short bed is Jerusalem’s false peace under the word.

Wesley: Perazim—where he fought against the Philistines (2 Sam. 5:20). Gibeon—where he fought against the Canaanites (Josh. 10:10) and afterwards against the Philistines (1 Chron. 14:16). Strange work—this work of bringing total destruction upon Israel was contrary to the benignity of his own nature, and to the usual way of dealing with his people.

The old victories are places, now turned against the scoffers in Judah. The strangeness is that the Lord who burst out for David now rises against his own. That is this generation’s alien work. They could have taken the stone; they kept the covenant with death.

Calvin quotes the same Perazim and Gibeon, where the Lord displayed his arm in defense of his people. For his own part he considers strange to mean simply what is uncommon or wonderful. He willingly admits the contrast: the Lord formerly performed miracles to save his people; he will now perform them in order to destroy that people, reckoning the wicked Israelites with the Philistines and Canaanites.

God rises up when we think him idle. The strange act is Judah’s own judgment in Isaiah’s century, patterned on old battles. The church is to fear the God who can use Perazim against Jerusalem as easily as for it.

Wesley: lest thereby you make the judgments of God sure and unavoidable. For—God hath assured me that he will utterly destroy the people of Israel. The mockers of v. 14 are warned once more: jeers tighten the bands; the determined consumption is already heard.

“don’t be scoffers” is an imperative to Jerusalem’s rulers. Bonds grow strong by their continuing mock, not by a decree they could never have refused. The whole land is Judah’s land under the scourge of this chapter. The stone still stands (v. 16); they may yet cease from the covenant with death. The verse is eighth-century warning.

Calvin: as the fox fallen into a snare fastens the knot more firmly by trying to escape, so wicked men by disobedience entangle themselves more and more. Be ye not mockers. He has heard a consumption determined upon the whole earth—or, if better, limited to Judea. Dreadful destruction is not distant; the day is fixed.

Resistance does not loosen the chain. The prophet brings nothing but what God revealed. The church hears a decree already spoken over the land of the scoffers. Christ remains the tried stone; the mockers’ bonds are of their unbelief in that generation, not a puzzle for later nations.