Isaiah 33

Wesley: the king—first Hezekiah, and then Christ, triumphing over all enemies, and ruling his own people with righteousness. Very far—thou shalt not be shut up in Jerusalem, but shalt have free liberty to go abroad with honour and safety.

Both traditions read the king in two steps: Hezekiah restored in honor, then Christ ruling his people in righteousness. The “distant land” means freedom to travel beyond the walls once the siege lifts.

Calvin: the king in his beauty. He addresses the sincere worshippers of God, to whom he promises this additional blessing. When Jerusalem was besieged, the king shut up within the city and surrounded by treacherous counsellors, the people unsteady and seditious, and everything hastening to ruin, there appeared to be no hope left. Though they behold their king covered with filthy garments, yet he shall be restored to his former rank and splendor. I am, therefore, disposed to view Hezekiah as a figure of Christ, that we may learn how great will be his beauty. The land very far off: the restoration of the Church consists of two parts; first, that the king shall be seen in his beauty; and secondly, that the boundaries of the kingdom shall be extended.

Calvin and Wesley both keep Hezekiah then Christ after that siege. The beauty stays with that restored king, then with Christ.

Wesley: thine heart—this is a thankful acknowledgment of deliverance from their former terrors and miseries. Where—these words they spoke in the time of their distress. The scribe, whom we call muster-master, was to make and keep a list of the soldiers, and to call them together as occasion required: the receiver, received and laid out the money for the charges of the war; and he that counted the towers, surveyed all the parts of the city, and considered what towers or fortifications were to be made or repaired. And unto these several officers the people resorted, with great distraction and confusion.

Wesley hears grateful memory here: the officials who counted tribute and towers during the siege are gone. The terror becomes something to look back on.

Calvin: thy heart shall meditate terror. He warns the people of approaching distresses, that believers, when delivered, may set a higher value on the condition to which they have attained. Where is the scribe? Where is the weigher? The scribe took account of persons, families, lands, and houses, and kept the registers of the taxes. The weigher received the taxes, for he weighed the money which was paid. The describers of the towers visit and examine each person’s house, hunting-hounds employed by tyrants to scent the track of money; he thinks it probable the Prophet speaks of the receivers of taxes, whom conquerors appoint over vanquished nations.

The counting stays with those officers of tribute.”

Wesley: a fierce—that fierce and warlike people, whom thou hast seen with terror, near the walls of Jerusalem, thou shalt see no more. A people—a foreign nation, whose language is unknown to thee.

The foreign army with its strange speech will vanish from the walls. Deliverance means no longer hearing the language of the oppressor at the gate.

Calvin: thou shalt not see a fierce people. He intends to express the fierceness of the Assyrians, which he afterwards affirms by saying that they would have no intercourse with them, because they spoke a different language. Nothing is more fitted to excite men to compassion than the intercourse of speech; when this is wanting, each party is a barbarian to the other. He dwells on the wretched condition of the people, in order to shew how great was the kindness of God in delivering them from so great terror.

The seeing-no-more stays with Assyria off Judah’s walls.

Wesley: look upon—contemplate Zion’s glorious and peculiar privileges. Solemnities—this was the chief part of Zion’s glory, that God was solemnly worshipped, and the solemn assemblies and feasts kept in her. Quiet—this was but imperfectly fulfilled in the literal Zion; but clearly and fully in the mystical Zion, the church of God, in the times of the gospel.

Zion is seen as a tent whose stakes will never be pulled up—a festival city at peace. Wesley reads it first of Jerusalem after the siege, then of the church God keeps secure.

Calvin: behold Zion, the city of our solemnities. He brings forward a promise of the restoration of the Church. They assembled there to hear the Law, to confirm the covenant of the Lord, to call upon his name, and to offer sacrifices. Jerusalem a peaceful habitation: although God gave to his people some taste of that peace under the reign of Hezekiah, yet it was only in Christ that the fulfillment of it was manifested. A tent which shall not be carried away, the stakes of which shall never be removed: he describes the condition of the Church; it will remain in spite of storms, in opposition to what appears to be its nature.

Calvin and Wesley both keep Hezekiah’s quiet, then Christ’s. The immovable tent stays with the Lord’s Zion.”

Wesley: there—in and about Zion. Rivers—tho’ we have nothing but a small and contemptible brook to defend us; yet God will be as sure a defence to us, as if we were surrounded with great rivers. No galley—no ships of the enemies shall be able to come into this river to annoy them.

Jerusalem had no great river for defense, only a modest water supply. Wesley’s point is that the LORD himself is better protection than any moat, and no enemy fleet can sail on that river.

Calvin: because there the mighty Jehovah will be to us a place of rivers. He assigns the reason why the Church, which appears to resemble a movable tent, exceeds in stability the best founded cities: the Lord is in the midst of her. He alludes to the situation of Jerusalem, which had only a small rivulet, and not large and rapid rivers like those of Babylon. There shall not pass a ship with oars: large rivers may give access to enemies; but enemies will not be allowed to approach. The hope of safety should not be sought from any other than from God alone.

The streams are still the LORD himself around that Zion. The barred galley stays with Assyria kept off.

Wesley: is judge—to plead our cause against our enemies. Lawgiver—our chief governor, to whom it belongs, to give laws, and to defend his people.

Judge, lawgiver, king, savior: every office of government belongs to the LORD. Wesley and Calvin share this confession, and it is the ground of the chapter’s confidence.

Calvin: for Jehovah is our judge. He explains the manner in which God dwells in the Church: he is there worshipped and acknowledged as Judge, Lawgiver, and King. They who obey God and yield subjection to him as their King shall know by experience that he is the guardian of their salvation. God alone has the right to rule the conscience, because he alone is Lawgiver and Judge, and he alone ought to rule and guide us by his word.

Judge, lawgiver, and king stay with his word in Isaiah’s Judah.”

Wesley: tacklings—he directs his speech to the Assyrians; and having designed their army under the notion of a gallant ship, verse 21, he here represents their undone condition, by the metaphor of a ship, tossed in a tempestuous sea, having her cables broke, and all her tacklings loose, so that she could have no benefit of her masts and sails; and therefore is quickly swallowed up. The lame—they shall leave so many spoils behind them, that there shall be enough left for the lame, who come last to the spoil.

The Assyrian “ship” is wrecked with its rigging loose. So much plunder is left that even the lame get a share.

Calvin: thy cords were loosed. He directs his discourse to the Assyrians, in whose person he likewise addresses all the enemies of the Church. He compares the condition of wicked men to ships; they have no solid foundation, though they appear to be formidable. The Lord will sink their ships, will take away their ropes and masts, and will involve them in a universal shipwreck. Then is the prey of a great spoil divided; the lame take the prey.

The spoil stays with Sennacherib’s abandoned camp.

Wesley: the inhabitant—of Jerusalem. Sick—shall have no cause to complain of any sickness or calamity. Forgiven—they shall not only receive from me a glorious temporal deliverance; but, which is infinitely better, the pardon of all their sins, and all those spiritual and everlasting blessings, which attend upon that mercy.

The healing is both outward and inward: no one will complain of sickness, and the people’s iniquity is forgiven. Wesley calls the forgiveness infinitely better than the deliverance.

Calvin: and the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick. He returns to the Church. The citizens of the Church shall be freed from every inconvenience, because through the favor of God they shall enjoy prosperity. The people that dwell in it have been freed from iniquity: all the miseries which press upon us spring from no other source than from our sins; when guilt has been removed, nothing remains but that God will regard us with the affection of a father. True happiness consists in this, that we have obtained pardon from God. None but the citizens of the Church enjoy this privilege.

Calvin and Wesley agree the inhabitant is Jerusalem’s after the deliverance; Calvin will not let pardon become a Papist satisfaction.