Isaiah 30

Wesley: wait—patiently expect your repentance. Exalted—he will work gloriously. Judgment—or mercy. That wait—in his way, with faith and patience. The Lord waiting is still mercy over the Judah that would not return in v. 15.

God waits to show mercy even to a people who refused him in v. 15. The blessing belongs to those who wait for him in turn.

Calvin: therefore will Jehovah wait. The Prophet now adds consolation; he intended to soothe their minds, and encourage them to hope for better things. He contrasts this waiting with the excessive haste against which he spoke at the beginning of the chapter. The Lord will not render like for like, and will not in that manner hasten to punish them. Jehovah is a God of judgment: God exercises moderation in inflicting punishment, because he is inclined to mercy. Blessed are all that wait for him.

He is not like us; he does not act with bustling or hurry, otherwise at every moment we must perish. The waiting is the Lord’s over Judah after the Egypt haste.

Wesley: shall dwell—after a set time, they shall return to Jerusalem, and have a fixed abode. This was in part accomplished upon their return from Babylon; but more fully in the times of the gospel, when many of them were, and the whole body of them shall be brought into Christ's church.

They might yet cry.

Calvin: surely the people in Zion shall dwell in Jerusalem. The people will indeed be afflicted, but will at length return to Zion. Weeping thou shalt not weep: this mourning shall not be perpetual. At the voice of thy cry: if we do not ask pardon from God, we are altogether unworthy of his mercy. He will answer thee: this means nothing else than that he will give evidence of his kindness and aid; the Lord answers, not by word, but by deed.

Jerusalem shall again be populous, because God had chosen it to be his sanctuary. The cry is Zion’s in that generation.”

Wesley heads vv. 18–26: God’s mercies to his people. He does not gloss this verse. The bread of adversity sits between the cry answered in v. 19 and the shepherd-word of v. 21: mercy is promised, and the Teacher is no longer hidden from that people.

They might yet see the Teacher.

Calvin: when the Lord shall have given you the bread of anguish and the water of affliction, then will the Lord bless you; he will change your condition for the better. The word moreh is viewed by some commentators as meaning a teacher. But this does not agree with the context; as the ignorant multitude was more deeply affected by the want of food, Isaiah gives them a taste of God's fatherly kindness under the emblem of abundance of food. By bread and water he means extreme want; instead of this famine he will send plenty. This is what he means by the word rain.

This had a literal reference to a country whose fertility depended on heaven. The church reads Judah’s scarcity turned, not a later code for “Teachers.”

Wesley: shall hear—thou shalt hear the voice of God's word and spirit. Behind thee—a metaphor borrowed from shepherds, who use to follow their sheep, and recall them when they go out of the way.

They might yet walk in it.

Calvin: then shall thine ears hear. The chief ground of gladness is when God restores pure and sound doctrine; he also promises that he would give us ears, for otherwise he would speak to the deaf. He compares God to a schoolmaster, who places the children before his eyes. By the right and left hand he means all the actions of human life, whatever they are, so that in all that we undertake we may have God for our guide, provided only that we do not turn aside from the path which he points out to us.

They who follow God as their guide will be in no danger of going astray. The word behind is Judah’s in that hour.

Wesley: defile—to shew your contempt of it. Covering—the leaves or plates wherewith their images were frequently covered. Ornament—it was a costly and glorious robe.

They might yet say Be gone. Scattering the unclean is an act in Zion.

Calvin: then shall you profane the covering. They will bid adieu to their errors, and devote their minds to the pure worship of God; they who are truly converted to God detest and abhor them. When he speaks of the silver and gold of the graven images, he means that no loss or damage prevents believers from abhorring the worship of idols. We ought to prefer the worship of God to everything else.

Nothing can be so valuable that it ought not to be reckoned worthless when it comes into competition with restoring the worship of God. The church hears Judah’s Be gone.

Wesley: bread—which shall be the fruit of thy own land and labour: and excellent for quality, which is called, fat, and abundant for quantity.

They might yet sow. Fat bread is the reverse of adversity’s loaf in v. 20.

Calvin: then will he give rain to thy seed. The fruit of repentance is that he receives converted persons into favor, and bestows his blessing on them. It is in vain for men to toil in cultivating their fields, if the Lord do not send rain from heaven. Let us not ascribe barrenness and famine to any other causes than to our own fault; by our iniquities we shut the bosom of the earth.

If his kindness overflows even on the cattle, how much more on men. The rain is over Judah’s seed.”

Wesley: clean provender—there should be such plenty of corn, that the very beasts, instead of straw, should eat corn; and that not in the ear, or with the straw, but the pure grain.

Plenty for the beasts is mercy overflowing that farm.

Calvin: thine oxen also. When he promises that the oxen and the asses shall eat abundant and clean provender, this is a repetition of the preceding verse. This passage is taken from the Law, that we may learn to discern in the sickness and death of cattle the indignation of God, and to desire more earnestly to be reconciled to him. Brute beasts suffer hunger along with their masters, and have a share in the bestowal of favor when God is reconciled to men.

The winnowed fodder stays with that reconciled farm in Isaiah’s century, not a later cipher for “oxen.”

Wesley: hill—which is commonly dry and barren. In the day—when God shall destroy the enemies of his people. The towers—the mighty potentates, who fought against God's people.

Streams break out on the dry hilltops on the day the towers fall. Wesley reads the towers as the powers that fought against God’s people.

Calvin: when the prophets describe the kingdom of Christ, they commonly draw metaphors from the ordinary life of men. On every high hill there shall be streams: water is not plentiful on the peaks of the mountains, which are exceedingly dry; yet the Lord promises that it shall be so. By the day of slaughter is denoted that God will keep his people safe against the violence of enemies. It is generally thought that he now speaks of the defeat of Sennacherib; but when I examine it more closely, I am more disposed to view this as referring to the destruction of Babylon; although a vast multitude was slain when Sennacherib was put to flight, yet still the people were not delivered.

Let us not be terrified at their power; neither their troops nor their bulwarks will hinder them from falling into the hands of God.

Wesley: sevenfold—as if the light of seven days were combined together in one. Healeth—when God shall effectually cure the wounds of his people, making Israel and Judah to be one, and making Jew and Gentile to be one fold under one shepherd.

Wesley’s one fold is the gospel shepherd. They might yet be healed. Wesley and Calvin both keep this light as the cure of Judah’s wound.

Calvin: the light of the moon shall be like the light of the sun. The Lord will go beyond the course of nature in this kindness. It never happened that the brightness of the sun was increased, unless when the sun stood still in the days of Joshua, and when, for the sake of Hezekiah, the dial went backward; but on this occasion nothing is said about those miracles. He shews what will be the condition of the godly under the reign of Christ; he speaks of happiness in which ungodly men can have no share. When the Lord shall have bound up the breach of his people: the Lord will be like a physician to heal their wounds; the people must be crushed and bruised in such a manner as to be reduced almost to nothing.

If we think the Lord deals harshly with us, let us call to remembrance that he will bind up our wounds.