Saying, go unto this people, and say
A message sent in wrath and judgment to the people of Israel,
rejected from being the people of God, a "lo ammi" being written
upon them; and therefore God does not call them "his", but "this"
people: and this message was sent by an evangelical prophet, who
foretold, in the clearest manner, the Messiah's incarnation, and
birth of a virgin, the work he was to do, the sufferings he
should undergo, and the glory that should follow; and that after
he had seen in a vision the glory of the King Messiah, the
perfections of deity filling the temple of his human nature, him
exalted on a throne, and attended and worshipped by angels; after
he had had such a view of his beauty and excellency, that laid
him low in his own sight, and humbled him under a sense of his
own impurity and unworthiness; and after he had had a comfortable
discovery and application of pardoning grace; and after he had
expressed such a readiness and willingness to go on the Lord's
errand: which one might have thought would have been of a
different nature; and that he would have been sent, and have been
made useful, to set forth the glories and excellencies of
Christ's person, office, and grace, he had had such a view of;
and to preach the comfortable doctrine of pardoning grace to men,
which he had just now such a gracious experience of; but on the
contrary, he is bid to say,
hearing ye shall hear;
with bodily ears, the Gospel preached by the Messiah and his
apostles:
and shall not understand,
spiritually and experimentally, what they heard: to have an
opportunity of hearing the Gospel, is a great blessing; seeing it
is good news, glad tidings of good things, a joyful sound, and
the voice of Christ himself; it is a distinguishing favour, and
what all men at all times have not; when it is attended with a
divine energy, the Spirit of God is received through it,
regeneration, quickening and sanctifying grace are by it; faith
comes by hearing it, and Christ is found under the ministration
of it; and, generally speaking, the understanding and knowledge
of divine things, are by means of it: men are naturally without
the understanding of spiritual things, and where the Gospel is
not, they remain so; the ministers of the Gospel, and the word
preached by them, are the means of leading men into a spiritual
understanding of things, though only as, and when attended with
the Spirit of God, who is a Spirit of wisdom and revelation, in
the knowledge of Christ: and a special mercy it is when persons,
whilst hearing the word, understand what they hear, and can
distinguish truth from error; and approve of the truth, receive
the love of it, feel the power, and taste the sweetness of it;
find it and eat it, believe, embrace, and profess it, and bring
forth fruits worthy of it: but on the contrary, when it is heard
and not understood, it is an awful dispensation; for hence either
they content themselves with bare hearing, and depend upon it for
salvation; or they despise and speak evil of what they do not
understand; and so their hearing, instead of being a blessing, is
an aggravation of their condemnation:
and seeing ye shall see:
miracles wrought:
and not perceive;
them to be proofs of the things, for which they are wrought: so
Jarchi expounds those words,
``ye shall see the wonders, or miracles I have done for you, and shall not set your hearts to know me''from whence it appears that the Gospel preached in the clearest and most powerful manner, and even miracles wrought in confirmation of it, are insufficient for conversion; and nothing will effect it, but efficacious grace.