But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the LORD.
Ver. 12. I will not ask.] All, lewd lowly! "I will not ask"; what a base answer was this of a bedlam Belialist! what a wretched entertainment of such an over bounding mercy! He doth upon the matter say, I will ask no asks; I will try no signs, I know a trick worth two off that; God shall for me keep his signs to himself; I crave no such courtesy at his hands; I can otherwise help myself, viz., by sending to the Assyrian. If the Lord could and would have helped, how happeth it that so lately no less than a hundred and twenty thousand of my subjects were cut off in one day by this Remaliah's son, as you contemptuously call him?
Neither will I tempt the Lord.] Or, Neither will I make trial of the Lord, as in the former note. Ambrose was mistaken who thought that Ahaz refused to ask or try the Lord, out of modesty and humility; rather it was out of pervicacy, or, at best, hypocrisy. Hic descendamus in nostras conscientias, saith good Oecolampadius. Here let us each descend and dive into his own conscience, to see whether we also have not matched Ahaz in his madness, or at least wise coasted too near upon his unkind usage of the Lord, by rejecting his sweet offers of grace and motions of mercy, by slighting his holy sacraments, those signs and seals of the righteousness that is by faith. Adsit fides, et aberit periculum. Let faith be near then danger is absent.