Isaiah 27:6-8 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

He shall cause them, &c.— Or, In times to come, Jacob shall take root: Israel, &c. Isaiah 27:7. Hath he smitten him according to the stroke of those that smote him? &c. Isaiah 27:8. In measure, when thou didst send it [the stroke] forth, thou didst contend with her, when he blew with his stormy blast in the day of the east-wind. If God had no anger, and no other reason for chastising his people, than to purify his vineyard from hypocrites, from thorns and briars,—this being effected by the divine judgment, it was necessary that his light, grace, and blessing should expand themselves in greater abundance over his church; which the prophet here foretels. The church, freed from its great affliction, he declares should shine with new splendor, and, long defiled and deformed, should shew all its glory with a remarkable produce and increase; to which end it had been preserved and purified: Yet some might think, that in the great affliction wherewith God had tried his church, he had treated her somewhat too severely. The prophet does not deny that God had acted with rigid justice; but he shews that this exercise of the divine justice had not exceeded the due bounds, and that there was the greatest difference between that manner of punishment which he had used toward his enemies, and the reason of the punishment which he had inflicted upon his church. His enemies had perished in the flame of his judgments; but he had preserved his church and faithful people for better things. This is the sense of the present period. Vitringa thinks that the meaning of the eighth verse is, that even in God's greatest judgments,—for instance, that upon Babylon,—he punishes his church differently from his enemies; for even at that time he did not omit due measure or moderation in the just and severe punishment of his people. He destroyed them not, but brought them back, chastised and purified, into their own country. This is that measure or moderation which God used toward his people at the time of the terribly-sounding blast of the east-wind; the vehement wind, which came from the desart. See chap. Isaiah 21:1. The prophet here introduces the Babylonish judgment, that it might be compared with that of Epiphanes, and illustrated from it; for, although a similar tempest might be raised up at that time by the kings of the Syrians, it was not without the divine providence, to which all kings are subject: It was not with a design to destroy, but to purify the church, and in the end to overthrow the enemies of it. See Vitringa.