I. Isaiah was a true patriot; he was a man of the purest moral character, and of the most absolute faith in God. It broke his heart to see the degradation of his countrymen; he saw that if there was a God in heaven who governed the world on principles of justice, such a social condition of a nation as marked Israel then must draw down what men in his day called judgment. He saw the ruthless Assyrian massing his troops together, and from that quarter the desolation threatened to come; they would be a trouble for many days and many years, till the nation was regenerated by a new and better spirit poured out upon them from on high; till men were estimated at their true value; till the frivolities of fashionable life had given place to earnestness of purpose, and the work of righteousness brought peace, and the effects of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever.
II. Every one who has read the utterances of these old Hebrew prophets with any attention can hardly have failed to be struck with what we may call, in the highest sense of the word, their political tone and character. They desired to purify the nation's moral life at its source. They tried to awaken their age from soothing but false dreams, that to-morrow would be as today, and much more abundant.
III. There are three things of which when the Spirit came He was to reprove the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. My faith is that national sins bring what the old Hebrew prophets call national judgments, not in the way of miracle, but as a natural and necessary consequence; and, on the other hand, that national righteousness averts them. The deadliest atheism is that which denies the supremacy of the principle of righteousness in the government of the world.
D. Fraser, Penny Pulpit,No. 2436.
Reference: Isaiah 32:17. Preacher's Monthly,vol. viii., p. 348.