Isaiah (Ch 55-56)
“God’s favor rests on those who attend to justice, who devote themselves to doing what is right, Who keep the Sabbath and don’t disregard or belittle it, who keep from doing what is wrong: destructive, deceitful, or violent” Isaiah 56:2 VOICE
Isaiah 55
1 “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters; and he that hath no money, come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. — Ho – (הוי hôy). This word here is designed to call attention to the subject as one of importance;
— every one that thirsts; the word ‘thirst’ often indicates intense desire and is thus applied to the sense of want which sinners often have and to their anxious wishes for salvation.
2 Why do ye spend money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto Me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. — wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? Lavish away time, opportunities, and strength, in reading and hearing false doctrine, which is not bread, but chaff; and the errors and heresies of false teachers:
— and let your soul delight itself in fatness; in the goodness and fatness of the Lord’s house, attending on the word and ordinances with spiritual pleasure and delight; and which is the way to become fat and flourishing in spiritual things.
3 Incline your ear, and come unto Me; hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. — Hear; hearken attentively and obediently to my counsel; hearing being oft put for obeying, as Deuteronomy 18:15; or as the Targum says, “Incline your ear and receive instruction of my law.”
4 Behold, I have given him for a witness to the people, a leader and commander to the people. — behold, I have given him; this is evidently the language of God respecting the Messiah, or of David as representing the Messiah;
— a leader and commander to the people; he is a “leader” as David the type of him did; as a general leads out and on his armies to battle; as a shepherd leads his flock to good pastures; He is a “commander” in a military way, a wise, powerful and courageous, and always victorious as a King commands his subjects; the Targum says, “behold, I have appointed him a Prince to the people, a King, and a ruler over all kingdoms.”
5 Behold, thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not, and nations that knew not thee shall run unto thee because of the Lord thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel; for He hath glorified thee.” — and nations that knew not thee shall run unto thee; knew not even God himself as the Gentiles did not, much less the Messiah;
— they knew neither his person nor his offices, nor the way of peace, and were in a state of gross darkness; and to whom the Gospel was not known, which is a revelation of Christ, and of good things by him. The Targum adds, “to bring tribute unto thee.”
6 Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near. — Seek ye the Lord; the commencement of religion in the heart is often represented as a desire to seek God; and inquiring for his ways Deuteronomy 4:29;
— so the Targum says, “seek the fear of the Lord, while ye are alive.” Or as one in the Jerusalem Talmud interprets these words, “whilst the Shechinah is found in the sanctuary; before he hides his face, and causes his Shechinah to remove from you.”
7 Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. — let the wicked forsake his way; his evil way, as the Targum paraphrases it, his wicked course of life; and which is his own way, of his own choosing, and in which he delights;
— and let him return unto the Lord; from whom he has departed, against whom he has sinned; and acknowledges his sin before the Lord, attends his word and worship; the Targum says, “and let him turn to the worship of the Lord.”
8 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,” saith the Lord. — notice the remarkable order and alternation of pronouns in the first verse. ‘My thoughts are not your thoughts,’ saith the Lord; the things that God thinks and purposes are not the things that man thinks and purposes and therefore because the thoughts are different the outcomes of them in deeds are divergent.
9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts. — the Almighty God’s thoughts transcend those of man as much as the heaven is higher than the earth.
10 For as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, — for as the rain come down and the snow from heaven return not; rain and snow come down from the clouds in the heavens and do not return again until they have done what they are sent to do, or have produced the following effects; otherwise they may be exhaled into vapours as they often are and drawn up again by the sun.
11 so shall My word be that goeth forth out of My mouth: It shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. — this is set forth under a figure drawn from the rain and the snow. “For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and return not till it has moistened the earth and fertilized it and made it green and offered seed to the sower and bread to the eater;
— so will my word be which go forth out of my mouth: it will not return to me fruitless, till it has accomplished that which I willed, and prosperously carried out that for which I sent it.”
12 “For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace; the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. — for ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace; though these words may literally respect the Israelites’ return from captivity to their own land, attended with joy and peace; as the preceding verse may respect the word of promise concerning it;
— as it is interpreted by the Targum, “for with joy shall ye go out from among the nations, and with peace shall ye be brought to your own land.”
13 Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree; and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.” — instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree; whereas your land was filled with thorns and briers, as was foretold, Isaiah 7:24, they shall be rooted out, and it shall be planted with fir trees and myrtle trees, and such other trees which are useful either for fruit or for delight.
Isaiah 56
1 Thus saith the Lord, “Keep ye judgement, and do justice; for My salvation is near to come, and My righteousness to be revealed. — keep ye judgement and do justice: this phrase elsewhere signifies the duties which one man owe to another but here it seems to signify the duties which men owe to God, to be held fast and abode by; which are his statutes and judgments; and so likewise all the ordinances of the Lord, all these should be kept.
2 Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold on it; who keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil.” — that keep the Sabbath from polluting it; here lies in the nature of the case that a devout king like David, Hezekiah and Josiah would be observers of the Sabbath;
— instead of observing the Sabbath, today, more than 98.5 percent of Christians are keeping Sunday, in fact they’re honouring the Sun by observing Sunday worship. They have “their backs toward the temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the SUN toward the east; whose Godly judgement is to be stoned to death – ’till they die.
— also, following the SUN-worshipping Samaritans, most Church of God Communities are showing their contempt for God by having their “wavesheaf offering” and Pentecost on a Sunday; always on a Sunday. And these are supposedly in God’s Sanctuary, but God says He is a jealous God, so these pretentious Christians could be spewed out of His mouth! A death penalty Deuteronomy 17:3-5 – ’till they die!
3 Neither let the son of the stranger, that hath joined himself to the Lord, speak, saying, “The Lord hath utterly separated me from His people”; neither let the eunuch say, “Behold, I am a dry tree.” — the son of the stranger; the stranger who keep the Sabbath is as the blessed son of Israel, the same with the blessed man in Isaiah 56:2; the Gentile, who by birth is a stranger to God, and also of the commonwealth of Israel;
— neither would such a stranger who keeps the Sabbath says, Behold, I am a dry tree – A dry tree is an emblem of that which is barren, useless, unfruitful.
4 For thus saith the Lord: “Unto the eunuchs that keep My Sabbaths, and choose the things that please Me, and take hold of My covenant, — for thus saith the Lord unto the eunuchs; even the eunuchs, who have hitherto been excluded from the privileges of the people of God and who have been regarded as a separated and degraded people shall be admitted to the same privileges as others;
— that keep my sabbaths – the word is used here in the plural, both the weekly and the annual Sabbath (at the feasts of Passover, Pentecost, Trumpets, day of Atonement and Tabernacles); the term could be used to represent other observances as well (more at the end).
5 even unto them will I give in Mine house and within My walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. — even to them will I give in mine house and within my walls; the Targum says, “in the house of my sanctuary, and in the land of the house of my Shechinah” meaning the temple at Jerusalem;
— a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters; a far greater blessing and honour than that of having posterity which is but only temporal and so as to have a good name; and it is he that gives them the name, privilege, power, and relation of children, which shall never be cut off by any act of their own.
6 Also the sons of the stranger that join themselves to the Lord to serve Him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be His servants, every one that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of My covenant, — also the sons of the stranger; to be His servants, whoever keep the Sabbaths from desecrating it and those who hold fast to my covenant, the conditions on which they should be admitted to the same privileges and of course the same reward.
7 even them will I bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon Mine altar, for Mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people.” — Mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people; Jews and Gentiles shall have equal freedom of access to my house, and shall there call upon my name, Yehovah;
— a house of prayer for all people; Gentiles, the proselytes, the sons of the strangers as others, are all welcome to the church of God to come and worship and pray to the Lord there and that is in any place where the saints meet together; for holy hands may be lifted up everywhere, without doubt.
8 The Lord God which gathereth the outcasts of Israel saith, “Yet will I gather others to him, beside those that are gathered unto him.” — Yehovah the Almighty God will not only restore the scattered outcasts of Israel (Isa 11:12; Ps 147:2) to their own land, but “will gather others (‘strangers’) to him (Israel), besides those gathered” to his gathered; that is, in addition to the outcast Israelites collected from their dispersion, John 10:16.
9 All ye beasts of the field, come to devour, yea, all ye beasts in the forest. — all ye beasts of the field – this evidently commences a new subject and refers to some invasion of the land of Judea; signifying a great slaughter that should be made, like that in Revelation 19:17 to which the fowls of the heaven are invited, as to a supper;
— the Targum of the whole says, “all the kings of the people that shall be gathered to oppress thee, O Jerusalem, shall be cast in the midst of thee; they shall be for food to the beast of the field, the beast of the forest shall be satisfied with them.”
10 His watchmen are blind; they are all ignorant; they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark, sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. — the Targum indicates plural ‘their’ for ‘his,’ their watchmen are blind; their priests, prophets and teachers; the teachers would be most shameful of them, because they are supposed to be knowledgeable and teaching others; but they are all ignorant;
— they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; and so useless; as a house dog, or one that is set to keep the sheep, if it barks not at the noise of a thief, or the approach of a wolf, to give notice to the family, or the shepherd, it is of no service. Some may design such who call themselves pastors or evangelists of the Word, and yet neither have knowledge nor how to preach, all all like dumb dogs; couldn’t reprove the errors and vices of men, nor warn them of their danger.
11 Yea, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand; they all look to their own way, every one for his gain, from his quarter. — yea, they are greedy dogs; insatiably covetous shepherds that have no truths nor understanding — Hebrew, that know not any understanding; that do not care, or love or desire either to understand the word of God themselves or to make the people understand it;
— they all look to their own way; that is, they are all selfish; they regard neither God’s glory nor the people’s good, but only the satisfaction of their own base desires. Every one for his gain from his quarter, in their places and stations.
12 “Come ye,” say they, “I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and tomorrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant.” — I will fetch wine out of his cellar, having good store of it, and that of the best and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; fill their bellies and skins full of it till drunken with it;
— the Targum confirms in this way, “saying, come, let us take wine, and be inebriated with old wine; and our dinner tomorrow shall be better than today, large, very large.”
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Both the Weekly and Annual Sabbaths; blessed are those who keep them!
Leviticus 23
1 And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying,
2 “Speak unto the children of Israel and say unto them: ‘Concerning the feasts of the Lord, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are My feasts.
3 “‘Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest, a holy convocation. Ye shall do no work therein; it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings.
4 “‘These are the feasts of the Lord, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons.
5 On the fourteenth day of the first month at evening is the Lord’S Passover.
6 And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread unto the Lord; seven days ye must eat unleavened bread.
7 On the first day ye shall have a holy convocation; ye shall do no servile work therein.
8 But ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord seven days. On the seventh day is a holy convocation; ye shall do no servile work therein.’”
9 And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying,
10 “Speak unto the children of Israel and say unto them: ‘When ye come into the land which I give unto you and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest unto the priest.
11 And he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord to be accepted for you; on the morrow after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it.
12 And ye shall offer that day when ye wave the sheaf a helamb without blemish of the first year for a burnt offering unto the Lord.
13 And the meat offering thereof shall be two-tenths part of fine flour mingled with oil, an offering made by fire unto the Lord for a sweet savor; and the drink offering thereof shall be of wine, a fourth part of a hin.
14 And ye shall eat neither bread nor parched corn nor green ears, until the selfsame day that ye have brought an offering unto your God; it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.
15 “‘And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the Sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven Sabbaths shall be complete.
16 Even unto the morrow after the seventh Sabbath shall ye number fifty days, and ye shall offer a new meat offering unto the Lord.
17 Ye shall bring out of your habitations two wave loaves of two-tenths part. They shall be of fine flour; they shall be baked with leaven; they are the firstfruits unto the Lord.
18 And ye shall offer with the bread seven lambs without blemish of the first year, and one young bullock and two rams; they shall be for a burnt offering unto the Lord, with their meat offering and their drink offerings, even an offering made by fire, of sweet savor unto the Lord.
19 Then ye shall sacrifice one kid of the goats for a sin offering, and two lambs of the first year for a sacrifice of peace offerings.
20 And the priest shall wave them with the bread of the firstfruits for a wave offering before the Lord with the two lambs; they shall be holy to the Lord for the priest.
21 And ye shall proclaim on the selfsame day that it may be a holy convocation unto you. Ye shall do no servile work therein; it shall be a statute for ever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.
22 “‘And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not rid cleanly the corners of thy field when thou reapest, neither shalt thou gather any gleanings of thy harvest. Thou shalt leave them unto the poor and to the stranger: I am the Lord your God.’”
23 And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying,
24 “Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, ‘In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, shall ye have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation.
25 Ye shall do no servile work therein, but ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord.’”
26 And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying,
27 “Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a Day of Atonement. It shall be a holy convocation unto you; and ye shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord.
28 And ye shall do no work in that same day, for it is a Day of Atonement to make an atonement for you before the Lord your God.
29 For whatsoever soul it be that shall not be afflicted in that same day, he shall be cut off from among his people.
30 And whatsoever soul it be that doeth any work in that same day, the same soul will I destroy from among his people.
31 Ye shall do no manner of work; it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.
32 It shall be unto you a sabbath of rest, and ye shall afflict your souls. On the ninth day of the month at evening, from evening unto evening, shall ye celebrate your sabbath.”
33 And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying,
34 “Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, ‘The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days unto the Lord.
35 On the first day shall be a holy convocation; ye shall do no servile work therein.
36 Seven days ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord. On the eighth day shall be a holy convocation unto you, and ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord. It is a solemn assembly, and ye shall do no servile work therein.
37 “‘These are the feasts of the Lord which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, to offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord, a burnt offering and a meat offering, a sacrifice and drink offerings, every thing upon his day”
38 besides the Sabbaths of the Lord, and besides your gifts, and besides all your vows, and besides all your freewill offerings which ye give unto the Lord.
39 “‘Also on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the Lord seven days; on the first day shall be a sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a sabbath.
40 And ye shall take for yourselves on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days.
41 And ye shall keep it a feast unto the Lord seven days in the year. It shall be a statute for ever in your generations; ye shall celebrate it in the seventh month.
42 Ye shall dwell in booths seven days; all that are Israelites born shall dwell in booths,
43 that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.’”
44 And Moses declared unto the children of Israel the feasts of the Lord.
Joel Huan
The Mystery of Ephraim 
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