Isaiah 8:11-16 - Hawker's Poor Man's Commentary

I pray the Reader to observe with me, the tender care of God over his people, in times of general calamity. In these verses, the Prophet is commissioned to comfort the Lord's mourners; and a precious word of comfort he gives. The Lord speaking to the prophet with a strong hand, intimates the strong impression made on the prophet's mind, by what the Lord said. As if he had said, "Tell my people, in the midst of those sinners, not to fear the general tidings of evil, neither shall they seek to form alliances with any: but let them sanctify me in their hearts, and make me their fear and their confidence; and they shall find that the fear of God will drive out the fear of man, as the fire of the sun will put out the fire of the hearth; or as the ocean will swallow up all rivers." Oh! that God's people, in all ages, were to adopt the same divine plan. But I beg the Reader not to overlook, in these verses, besides this general direction, another special mercy marked: I mean in the features of Him, who is promised as a sanctuary. The very characters by which he is here revealed most fully point him out: He who is to be for a sanctuary to his people, is to be to others, for a stone of stumbling, and for a rock of offence. Now who can hesitate a moment to discover the Lord Jesus in these distinguishing characters? If there were any doubt on this subject, the scriptures of the New Testament would fully explain it: Simeon was commissioned by the Holy Ghost to tell Mary, that Jesus was set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel, and for a sign which should be spoken against. Luke 2:34; the Apostle Paul calls Jesus expressly by this name, a stumbling-stone and rock of offence, Romans 9:33; Peter speaks to the same amount, and both in reference to this very prophecy, and to another to the same purport in Isaiah: compare Isaiah 28:16 with 1 Peter 2:6-8. Yea, Jesus himself makes reference to the same, in his conversation with the Jews; and as Isaiah saith in this passage, that many among the people of Judah shall stumble and fall, and be broken; so Christ explains how by falling or stumbling on this stone, viz. himself, which God the Father had laid in Zion, Matthew 21:42-44. And, Reader, mark what the Prophet saith at the close of this paragraph, at the Lord's command, to bind up the testimony, and seal the law among his disciples what can be more gracious, on the part of God; or what more blessed to do, on the part of the believer? Oh! Lord, help me to have recourse to thy blessed word at all times, for the unalterable testimony of thy truth; and in the experience of it in my own soul, to set to it my poor seal also, that God is true; John 3:33.