I am sought of [them that] asked not [for me]; I am found of [them that] sought me not: I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation [that] was not called by my name.
Ver. 1. I am sought of them that asked not for me.] I am sought - that is, I am found, a as Ecc 3:6 or, I am sought to by those that asked not of me - viz., by the Gentiles, who knew me not, inquired not of me. See Romans 10:20,21, where the apostle, than whom we cannot have a better interpreter, expoundeth this verse of the calling of the Gentiles, and the next verse, of the rejection of the Jews. And herein "Esaias was very bold," saith St Paul; so bold, say Origen and others, that for this cause, among others, he was sawn asunder by his unworthy countrymen. See on Isaiah 1:10 .
I am found of them that sought me not.] The first act of our conversion then, the infusion of the sap, is of God; our will prevents it not, but follows it. See 2Co 3:5 Rom 8:7 John 6:44 1Co 12:3 Deuteronomy 29:3,4 Psalms 36:10. Note this against the patrons of nature, freewill men, Papists especially, who not only ascribe the beginning of salvation to themselves, in co-working with God in their first conversion, but also the end and the accomplishment of it, by works of condignity, meritorious of eternal life.
I said, Behold me, behold me.] We are not easily aroused out of that dead lethargy into which sin and Satan hath cast us; hence this "Lo I, lo I." And here we have both God's answer to the Church's prayer, Isa 64:12 and the scope of the whole book, as Oecolampadius observeth, set down in the perclose - viz., the coming in of the Gentiles, and the casting off of the Jews for their many and mighty sins. Amo 5:12
a Piscat.