Isaiah 32

Wesley: ye—that indulge yourselves in idleness and luxury. Careless—who are insensible of your sin and danger.

The women at ease are summoned to rise and listen while there is time. Comfort has made them careless, and the warning is meant to break that.

Calvin: ye women at ease, arise. He addresses women rather than men, in order to shew the extent of that calamity; in ordinary circumstances women and children are spared. He expressly addresses them as women at ease, who are usually more delicate, and, enjoying the advantages of wealth, have some means of providing for their safety. After promising grace to believers, the prophets next warn hypocrites that the mercy promised to believers will be of no avail to them.

The church hears that ease.”

Wesley: the vintage shall fail—during the time of the Assyrian invasion. The gathering—of the other fruits of the earth.

Within a little more than a year the vintage will fail. The warning comes with a date, so complacency has no excuse.

Calvin: days above a year. By these words he declares that the calamity will be of long duration; he threatens not only that they shall endure them for one year, but that afterwards they must look for new afflictions. Because they were sunk in their pleasures, the Prophet addresses their bellies rather than their understandings, threatening a scarcity of wine and wheat.

The vintage fails to shake off sloth in that Judah. The shudder stays with Isaiah’s year.

Wesley: strip—put off your ornaments. Trembling and sackcloth are still the dress of those women at ease after the vintage of v. 10.

The complacent women are told to strip off their finery and put on sackcloth. The call is to repent before the invasion, not after.

Calvin: this repetition is not unnecessary; when men are asleep, they are not easily aroused. He describes the manner and dress of mourners: whenever they were visited by deep adversity, they put on sackcloth, made bare the other parts of their body. He desires women to put on sackcloth instead of the luxuries in which they eagerly indulged. This exhortation ought to be explained in the future tense: you shall at length tremble.

Prosperity had blinded them; the Lord will arouse them from ease. The sackcloth stays with those daughters.

Wesley: the teats—for the pleasant and fruitful fields, which like teats yielded you plentiful and excellent nourishment. The beating of the breast is still for Judah’s fields and vine after the strip of v. 11.

The lament is for the fields and vines that had fed them so richly. What they took for granted will be gone.

Calvin: some understand that there will be so great a scarcity that women will lose their milk; the more appropriate interpretation is to view “breasts” as figuratively denoting fields and vineyards, because, by deriving nourishment from them, we suck the milk or blood of the earth. The Lord will curse the earth, so that it shall yield no fruits.

The fields are still the land of his people. The lament stays with that curse.”

Wesley: yea—upon that ground, where now your houses stand, in which you take your fill of mirth and pleasure.

Thorns will grow where the houses of revelry now stand. The joyous city is Jerusalem, and its pleasures will not outlast the invasion.

Calvin: he confirms the former verse: fields which used to be fat and fertile will be uncultivated, desolate, and barren. On the land of my people: by giving it this name he meets the objection that the land God had chosen would not fail; they made void the blessing by their wickedness. Even on all the houses of joy: this desolation will be even in the splendid houses which formerly were the abodes of the most refined luxury.

A land flowing with milk and honey is covered with briers because they drew down wrath. The houses stay in that Judah.

Wesley: forsaken—of God, and given up into their enemies hands. A joy—desolate places, in which wild asses delight to be.

Wesley reads the desertion as God’s withdrawal before it is the enemy’s conquest.

Calvin: he describes more fully the desolation: palaces and cities, all that was splendid and lofty in Judea, will be brought to nothing. When he says for ever, he gives warning that this calamity will not last only for a single day; they had been long hardened in their vices. Men are dazzled by their own splendor till they lift up their eyes to heaven.

Nothing exempted—palace, city, fortress. The forsaking stays with Judea, not a later skyline pasted onto “watchtower.”

Wesley: until—until the time come, in which God will pour, or, as the Hebrew word properly signifies, reveal, evidently and plentifully pour out his spirit from heaven upon his people, which was fully accomplished in the days of the Messiah. The fruitful field—God’s people who were desolate, shall be revived and flourish, and their flourishing enemies shall be brought to destruction.

“Until” is the turning point of the chapter: desolation lasts only until the Spirit is poured out. Wesley sees the fulfillment in the days of the Messiah, when wilderness becomes fruitful field.

Calvin: till the Spirit be poured out upon you. The restoration of the Church proceeds solely from the grace of God; he raises their eyes to the very Author of life. While Isaiah thus prophesies concerning the reign of Hezekiah, all this is declared to relate to the kingdom of Christ as its end and accomplishment. We who were wildernesses may become cultivated and fertile fields; they whose natural dispositions had some appearance of goodness, being renewed by the same Spirit, will afterwards be so fruitful that they will appear as if they had formerly been a wilderness.

Barrenness removed the moment he imparts strength from heaven. The orchard stays with that restoration under Hezekiah and then Christ.”

Wesley: judgment—just judgment. Righteousness—justice shall be executed in all the parts of the land.

After the Spirit is poured out (v. 15), justice settles everywhere—wilderness and fruitful field alike.

Calvin: the Prophet shews what is the actual condition of the Church, that is, when justice and judgment prevail; men ought not to be like cattle, which seek nothing but plenty of food. The Jews were not confined to transitory enjoyments. Under justice and judgment he includes all that belongs to uprightness, including piety and the worship of God. This is the end of all the blessings which the Lord bestows, that we should serve him in holiness and righteousness.

The wilderness and the field both get judgment when the Spirit has been poured. The church hears that condition of the restored Church.

Wesley: the work—the effect of this shall be prosperity. Quietness—tranquility, both of mind and outward estate. Assurance—of God’s mercy, and the fulfilling of his promises. Peace is still the fruit of that land’s righteousness after v. 16.

Righteousness yields peace, quietness, and confidence. Wesley reads the quietness as both inner tranquility and outward security, and the confidence as assurance of God’s mercy.

Calvin: he censured that peace which made the Jews drowsy; he now promises a different kind of repose, a striking proof of the love of God. He contrasts that brutal repose which the reprobate think they obtain by presumption with the repose the children of God obtain by a religious and holy life. Wars proceed from the wrath of God, which we provoke by our wickedness; peace springs from his blessing. These things do not relate exclusively to Hezekiah, but must be referred to Christ.

The effect of righteousness is not the old ease of vv. 9–11. The quietness stays with the restored Church under Christ.

“My people will live in a peaceful habitation” is the rest that follows the Spirit poured out in v. 15: first Judah’s quiet after Assyria, then the gospel rest Wesley sees promised to Christ’s people.

The peaceful dwellings are the fruit of righteousness in v. 17. Wesley and Calvin both read the promise first of Judah and then of the rest Christ gives his people.

Calvin: as spiritual righteousness is that which has its seat in the hearts of men, we must say the same thing about peace, which is the fruit of it. When quiet habitations are mentioned, let us remember Paul: justified by faith, we have peace with God. When Christ says that he leaves this peace to the disciples, he affirms that it cannot be given by the world. A bad conscience is always alarmed. Assured peace is enjoyed by none but believers, who appeal to the heavenly tribunal by their piety and by their reliance on the mercy of God.

Christ does not yet reign where consciences are uneasy. The habitation stays with that people under his peace.”

Wesley: it shall hail—as my blessings shall be poured down upon my people, who, from a wilderness, are turned into a fruitful field, so my judgments (which are signified by hail, chap. 28:2, 17, and elsewhere) shall fall upon them, who were a fruitful field, but are turned into a forest, upon the unbelieving and rebellious Jews. The city—Jerusalem, which, though now it was the seat of God’s worship and people, yet he foresaw, would be the great enemy of the Messiah. Low—shall be greatly humbled, or brought very low.

Hail on that forest is still judgment in the same history that ends at Christ.

Calvin: the prophets describe under figures the reign of Christ. The Lord will remove from his people distresses and annoyances, and will make them fall on others. By forests he means unfrequented and desert places, where there are no crowds of men. The city shall be situated to a low place: cities which shall be situated on level ground will be out of danger; they will not need the ordinary fortifications, because the city may be safely set down in valleys; the hand of the Lord will protect it.

We must not seek safety by relying on our defences. The hail is turned from the people under Christ’s guard.

Wesley: blessed—as the barren forest shall be destroyed, so the fruitful field shall be improved, and bring forth much fruit; which is signified by a declaration of the blessedness of them that sow in it. Waters—in all moist grounds, which are like to yield good fruit. But this also is to be understood of the times of the gospel, and of the great and happy success of the ministers of it. The ox—which they employed in plowing and sowing the ground.

Sowing beside every stream pictures confident, abundant labor. Wesley extends it to gospel ministers whose work bears fruit.

Calvin: blessed are ye. He shews how great will be the change, when Christ shall begin to reign; formerly thorns and briers would overspread the holy land; now they shall be blessed, because God will give them abundant produce. Places overrun with waters shall be fit for sowing; the corn will grow so thick that it shall be necessary to send oxen and asses to crop the early blade. They who complain that it is not yet fulfilled ought to consider whether they themselves are purified from every stain of sin; let them be satisfied with enjoying the blessing of God according to the measure of regeneration, the full enjoyment of which we must not expect till, freed from the pollution of the flesh, we shall bear the perfect image of God.