Jehovah’s judgment and its result
Chapter 63:1-6. We find again here the terrible judgment of chapter 34 executed by Jehovah (or rather having been already executed, for He returns from it). The result is the peace and blessing which we have just seen described in chapter 62.
The plea of the afflicted trusting remnant
From verse 7 of chapter 63 we have the reasoning of the Spirit of prophecy in the mouth of the remnant, or perhaps that of the prophet, putting himself in that position. And in chapters 65-66, we find Jehovah’s answer. Nothing can be more affecting than the way in which the Spirit lends Himself to the expression of all the feelings of a faithful Israelite’s heart; or rather in which He gives a form to the sentiments of an afflicted but trusting heart, recalling past kindnesses, overwhelmed by the present distress, acknowledging the hard-heartedness and rebellion of which they had been guilty, but appealing to the unchangeable faithfulness of God’s love against the judicial blinding and hardening which the people are under. If Abraham acknowledged them not, God was their Father. Where was His strength, His tenderness, His mercies? Were they restrained? Faith recognizes through all things the link between the people and God; it acknowledges that God prepares for those that wait on Him things beyond man’s conception1-that He meets those who walk uprightly; and it confesses that the state of Israel is quite different-that they are sinners not even seeking His face. But the affliction of His people, the disastrous condition into which sin had brought them, is to faith a plea with God. Whatever had happened, the people were to faith as the clay, and Jehovah the potter. They were His people; their cities, the cities of Jehovah. The house in which their fathers had worshipped was burned up, and all was laid waste.
(1. The difference between this and gospel knowledge as made by Paul (1 Cor. 2) is striking, often quoted for just the contrary. These things, he says, have not entered into man’s heart, but God has revealed them unto us (Christians) by His Spirit; so at the end of the chapter, “But we have the mind of Christ.”)