THE DUTY OF TEACHERS OF TRUTH IN TIMES OF NATIONAL PERVERSION
In Hebrews 2:13 the commencement of Isaiah 8:18 is quoted as an utterance of the Messiah. This opens up questions concerning the New Testament quotations from the Old which cannot be fully discussed in this commentary. It may suffice to remark that the Spirit inspiring Isaiah was the Spirit of Christ, and that therefore Isaiah’s utterances generally may be regarded as the utterances of Christ; and further, this is especially true in those cases in which there is a close similarity in the position occupied by the great prophet of the Messiah and the Messiah Himself. At times Isaiah appears to be merely the spokesman of the Messiah; but in others, while his words had their ultimate and highest fulfilment in Christ, they were primarily true of himself, and this appears to be the case here.
There are times when a nation goes utterly wrong, politically, socially, and, as the root of all the evil, religiously. God is forgotten, and the people give themselves over to purposes of ambition or of sensual pleasure. It is a time of formalism and pharisaism, of infidelity and blasphemy, of luxury and vice. So strong is this current of evil that it seems a hopeless and foolish thing for any man or body of men to resist it. What, then, is the prophet or faithful preacher to do? Prudence counsels compliance with the prevailing temper (2 Chronicles 18:12), or at least a temporary silence. Shall he listen to prudence, and bid principle wait for a more fitting season? Nay, but—
I. Let him betake himself in prayer to God (Isaiah 8:16). Let him pray especially that Divine truth may be kept in the hearts of the few who have been led to receive it [863]
[863] I agree with Vitringa, Drechsler, and others in regarding Isaiah 8:16 as the prophet’s own prayer to Jehovah. We “bind”—tie together—what we wish to keep from getting separated and lost; we “seal” what is to be kept secret, and only opened by a person duly qualified. And so the prophet here prayed that Jehovah would take his testimony with regard to the future, and his intimation, which was designed to prepare for the future that testimony and thorah which the great mass, in their hardness, did not understand, and in their self-hardening despised, and lay them up well secured and well preserved, as if by bond and seal, in the hearts of those who received the prophet’s words with loving obedience. For it would be all over with Israel unless a community of believers should be preserved, and all over with the community if the word of God, which was the ground of their life, should be allowed to slip out of their hearts.—Delitzsch.
II. Let him wait upon God with immovable confidence that His truth shall yet prevail in the earth (Isaiah 8:17). Thus did the Primitive Christians, the Puritans, and the Covenanters in the evil days in which they lived.
III. Let him recognise and glory in the position he occupies (Isaiah 8:18). He and his spiritual children are God’s witnesses (Isaiah 44:8); what position could be more honourable? Let them not shrink from its conspicuousness (Philippians 2:15); let them not be disheartened by the singularity it involves (H. E. I. 1042–1045, 3906, 3914; P. D. 1188). Amid all that is depressing and threatening in the position to which they have been Divinely called, let them remember their Lord’s declarations (Matthew 10:32; Revelation 3:5).