The work of righteousness - Righteousness works and produces peace. The effect of righteousness - עבדת abodath , the culture. Righteousness, cultivated by peace, produces tranquillity of mind and permanent security. Reader, hast thou the principle? If so, dost thou cultivate it? If thou dost, thou hast peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Ghost, and a sure and certain hope of everlasting life. read more
The city shalt be low all a low place. "The city shall be laid level with the plain" - For ובשפלה ubashephelah , the Syriac reads וכשפלה ukeshephelah . The city - probably Nineveh or Babylon: but this verse is very obscure. Saltus; Assyriorum regnum: civitas; magnifica Assyriorum castra. Ephrem Syr. ire loc. For וברד ubarad , a MS. has וירד vaiyered ; and so conjectured Abp. Secker, referring to Zechariah 11:2 . read more
Until the Spirit be poured out. How constantly does Scripture speak of every happy reformation as due to the "outpouring of the Spirit," or the sending or breathing of the Spirit on human-kind! Language none the less expressive because mysterious. Those epochs cannot be forecast: no meteorology can explain to us these movements "from on high." But they may be waited for and prepared for, without fear of disappointment. Again and again they had come to the prophet's heart; and from his heart... read more
Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briars. This was the punishment with which the unfruitful vineyard was threatened in Isaiah 5:6 . It may be understood either literally or of the wickedness that would abound when the time of judgment came. Yea, upon all the houses of joy (comp. Isaiah 5:9 ). If Sennacherib carried off, as he declares, more than two hundred thousand captives from Judaea, he must have left many houses without inhabitants. The solitude begun by him was... read more
A FURTHER MINGLING OF THREATS WITH COMFORTING PROMISES . The women require, like the men, to be both warned and comforted, wherefore the prophet addresses to them, as to the men in Isaiah 30:1-33 . and 31; an intermixture of threatening ( Isaiah 30:13 , Isaiah 30:14 ) with promise ( Isaiah 30:15-20 ). read more
The palaces shall be forsaken ; literally, the palace ; but the word is used in a generic sense. The prophet sees in vision Jerusalem deserted by her inhabitants, the grand houses of the rich empty, the strongholds haunted by wild beasts, and the slopes of the hills fed on by sheep, and even occasionally visited by the timid and solitude-loving wild ass. The description suits well the time of the Babylonian captivity, but not any earlier period. Probably it was not revealed to the... read more
Until . The expression "until" modifies the previous "forever," showing that the desolation was not always to continue. The Spirit be poured upon us from on high. An effluence from the Holy Spirit of God on individuals of eminence, prophets, kings, artificers, to fit them for their tasks, is recognized in many of the earlier books of Scripture, and especially in the Davidical psalms. But a general effluence of the Spirit of holiness on a nation, to produce a change of heart, seems to be... read more
The Spirit as a quickening Rain. The results produced by heavy rains in the East are so striking that these rains become a suggestive figure of the influence of God's Spirit on souls and on Churches. In times of prolonged drought, the ground is burnt up and chapped, and every sign of vegetation is destroyed. Then come the rains, the life in the soil responds, and in a few hours the world is green again. The figure of " pouring forth," or " pouring out," needs, however, to be very... read more
The fruits of the Spirit in a community. The first result of the effluence of the Holy Spirit on man is fruitfulness: "the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field a forest." The dry ground of a stony heart is changed into a cultivated garden, which "brings forth much fruit." The heart which already bore some fruit is "purged, that it may bring forth more fruit" ( John 15:2 ). Then, when individuals have been thus changed and "purged" and perfected one by one, judgment... read more
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Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - Isaiah 32:15
And the fruitful field - והכרמל vehaccarmel . So fifteen MSS., six ancient, and two editions; which seems to make the noun an appellative. read more