I am sought out of them that inquired not [for me], I am found of them that sought me not; I have said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name.
Isaiah 65 opens with God answering the appeal that closes the chapter before it. His answer starts not with Israel but with people who never once looked for Him. Who are these strangers? And how could they find God when they were not even looking for Him?
The chapter is not a fresh subject but a response. One writer sets the verse in that place and points to the New Testament for its settled meaning:
This chapter begins Jehovah's answer to the appeal of His people. In it He explains what is now an accomplished fact, and also what still goes on... The last two verses of Romans 10 leave no ground for hesitation as to their bearing. They give an inspired comment on our opening verses. They prove beyond dispute that the first verse points to the call of the Gentiles, which is going on now. The second verse is God's grieved witness to what gave occasion for that call — the rebelliousness of His ancient people Israel... On our own we might never have found this application. But once it is made, the spiritual mind sees that it matches well-known facts exactly.
One writer finds Isaiah's boldness in the wording itself. The prophet does not speak about God; he speaks as God:
Yes, Isaiah does speak with great boldness. He speaks as the very voice of Jehovah, not about Him. He does not say, "He was ready to be sought… He was ready to be found… He said…" but rather, "I was ready to be sought… I was ready to be found… I said…" How can it be, we may ask, that people who never asked after God are now seeking Him? The answer seems obvious. It must happen as the result of God seeking after them. This is exactly what has taken place in this Gospel age.
The people God speaks to here had no name from Him and no history with Him. One writer ties that to why God turned from the nation that had both:
Grace is sovereign and goes out now to those who never so much as looked for it — to the ungodly Gentiles who had until now stood in no recognised relationship with God. But when God turned from Israel, their sins fully justified Him. After all their advantages, the chosen people had caused His name to be blasphemed among the Gentiles. So He was most gracious in calling from among the Gentiles, and most righteous in discarding the Jew.
Isaiah himself belonged to the nation that carried God's name. One writer weighs that against what he announced:
Here we have a Jewish prophet, hemmed in by nature and by religion within a rigid exclusiveness. He reports that God was found by people who never sought Him by sacrifice or ritual. God showed Himself to people who never asked after Him by prayer or any other means.
The same writer names the instinct that makes such news hard to hear:
It took real boldness for Isaiah to say such a thing. The eldest son was jealous of the prodigal, and the Jew is jealous of the Gentile... The natural heart would keep the grace of God to itself; but that grace is boundless, free, common to all.
Read as a picture of Christ, the verse describes a doctor who arrives before anyone thinks to send for Him:
Christ shows more love to His patients than any other physician does. You can see it in that long journey He took from heaven to earth. You can see it in this too: He comes to His patients without being sent for... Then this physician lets Himself bleed to cure His patient... Christ Himself drank that bitter cup which we should have drunk, and by His drinking it we are healed and saved.
- Answer — The verse opens God's reply to His people. The end of Romans 10 fixes its meaning beyond dispute.
- Initiative — Whoever seeks God here was sought by Him first. The seeking is the result, not the cause.
- Sovereign — Grace goes out to people with no recognised relationship to God. Setting aside the nation that had every advantage was just.
- Bold — A prophet of the named nation announced that God is found apart from sacrifice, ritual, or prayer. Grace is not something the heart may keep to itself.
- Uncalled — Christ crossed from heaven to earth. He came to patients who never sent for Him, then bled to cure them.
I have stretched out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, who walk in a way not good, after their own thoughts;
God's reply here is not an argument. It is a gesture — hands held out all day long to a people walking their own way. Two questions follow. What does it mean for God to keep pleading with people who will not have Him? And what happened when that long day ended?
The chapter opens as a reply to Israel's appeal. God speaks first of those who never looked for Him, then of His own people who refused Him.
This chapter begins Jehovah's answer to the appeal of His people. In it He explains what is now an accomplished fact, and also what still goes on... The last two verses of Romans 10 leave no room for doubt about what these verses mean. They give an inspired comment on our opening verses. They prove beyond dispute that the first verse shows the call of the Gentiles, which is going on now. The second is God's grieved witness to what gave occasion for their call — the rebelliousness of His ancient people Israel.
The verse gives three details: what the people followed, where it led them, and how long God kept calling.
The people had been rebellious. They followed "their own thoughts" instead of God's thoughts, which He gave in His holy law. And these thoughts of theirs led their feet into a way that was not good. God had stooped to plead with them "all the day." That "day" had been a long one, stretching over centuries. To these appeals they had not responded.
The picture settles a question people still raise: did God abandon Israel? Outstretched hands are not the posture of someone walking off.
It is not God who has rejected His ancient people. He says: "All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people." It is important to see this side of the truth. God is perfectly ready for Israel — indeed for all men — to be saved. It is man who is the rebel, the breaker of the law, and now the rejecter of the mercy of God.
What Isaiah records as God's complaint became the daily experience of Jesus. He gave everything to His work among them and saw it produce nothing.
He saw just as clearly that His work bore no fruit. His service never let up, His zeal consumed Him, and He gave Himself completely to His mission. His enemies test Him and ask Him for a sign from heaven. His friends and followers are blind and deaf to the true meaning of His ministry. So people resisted the great impulses of His loving heart from both sides, and threw them back on Him... He could take up the language of the prophecy: "All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people."
Another writer ties the verse to the Lord's own words over Jerusalem.
Israel would not be gathered, as the Lord Himself said in Matthew 23:37, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, ... and you were not willing." Again in Isaiah 65:2, "I spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious people."
Verse 1 and verse 2 stand side by side. One nation refused, while nations that had never asked found Him — and that arrangement has an end point.
The only true sense is the one given by the apostle in Romans 10:20-21... Take the apostle's comment as the end of the argument, and the conclusion simply agrees with what the prophecy itself proves many times over. Here we are looking at the Jews set aside — not for their idolatry only, but for their rejection of the Messiah. And we are looking at Gentiles called meanwhile by sovereign grace, before mercy steps in at the end of the age to restore Israel.
The gesture is not confined to one nation or one era. It is how God deals with people who do not want Him.
The love of God also seeks man's reconciliation to Himself... "God making His appeal through us, we implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God." No one could use such words about redemption. His love desired the reconciliation, though we did not. Even about sinful Israel we read that He held out His hands to a disobedient and contrary people. He waited on them with patience, but they refused; and it is to the glory of His own grace that He has brought us to Himself.
- All the day — God pleaded with Israel for centuries, not hours. The length of that day measures His patience.
- Their own thoughts — they did not stumble in ignorance. They chose their own thinking over God's, and that choice picked their road.
- Held out hands — God did not walk away. Man is the one who refuses, and the refusal is his own.
- Christ's own words — Jesus lived this verse out. He served without rest, met only blindness, and Jerusalem would not come to Him.
- Grace overflows — one people refused, and people who never asked for God found Him. Mercy will yet return to restore Israel at the end of the age.
the people that provoke me to anger continually to my face, sacrificing in gardens and burning incense upon the bricks;
In Isaiah 65 God holds out His hands all day to a people who will not come. Verse 3 tells why He turned to others. Israel insulted Him not by secret rebellion only, but by acts of worship offered where He never asked for them.
God has just said that a nation which never sought Him has found Him. Now He shows why He turned from the people who bore His name to the Gentiles — the nations outside Israel.
Grace is sovereign. It now goes out to people who never even looked for it — to the ungodly Gentiles, who until then had no recognised relationship with God. But in turning away from Israel, God was fully justified by their sins. After all their advantages, the chosen people had caused God's name to be blasphemed among the Gentiles. So He showed the greatest grace in calling people from among the Gentiles, and the greatest righteousness in setting the Jew aside.
Sacrifice and offering were things God Himself had commanded. What made these offensive was the place and the manner. God had fixed both, and Israel chose otherwise.
The evil ways of Israel were mostly tied to idol worship, as verses 3-7 show. Deuteronomy 12 opens with the words, "These are the statutes and rules that you shall be careful to do in the land." Then come bans on the high places, the groves or gardens, and the altars that the pagan nations had made. So God's way for them was to bring all their offerings to His place in Jerusalem, offering as He had commanded. But they preferred to worship according to their own thoughts, and these verses show the result. Their sacrifices were wrong; their altars were wrong.
In the Bible a garden is a place of pleasure and beauty. It is also walled in, which made it useful to people who wanted their religion out of sight.
People also saw the garden as a place of delights, and the Song of Solomon often uses it as a picture in that sense. Gardens were also hidden places of secret sin.
The irony sits in the verse itself. What they hid behind garden walls, God says they did all day long to His face.
If God is the one we worship, He also sets the terms. A worshipper who picks his own terms is no longer worshipping God.
God is to be worshipped according to what He Himself is (John 4). Taking anything as authority in religion except what comes from Him spoiled worship... Man is not to decide his own ways as a worshipper. Willingness in worship is right; wilfulness destroys it all... Keeping groves and high places in Israel always showed that the people had not properly prepared their hearts to seek the Lord God of Israel, the only true God, who had put His name at Jerusalem.
Some object that Israel gave up such idolatry after the exile in Babylon, so the verse must describe an earlier age only. Kelly answers that prophecy often names sins whose full reckoning comes much later.
Some have objected that these idolatries and superstitions, covered over with a pretence of holiness, did not happen after the return from Babylon. But we must not forget that in prophecy the Holy Spirit deals with the evils present or growing at the time. A providential punishment, such as the conquest by Nebuchadnezzar, did not settle the judgement of those evils... these evil ways which Isaiah describes met no adequate condemnation until God turned the stream of His calling into other channels... We must also keep in mind, as we have seen already, that idolatry will revive in the last days, when the Jews settle themselves in their land before the Lord appears.
The root sin here is not exotic. It is preferring your own ideas about God's service to what God has said. Anyone can do that.
Let us pause a moment and ask whether we have followed our own thoughts instead of God's in what He has revealed to us. His mind for us as individual Christians, and also as members of the body of Christ — the church — is plainly stated in the letters of the New Testament. Now it is sadly easy to slip away from them and walk after our own thoughts, and this happens most of all in church matters. It is easy to say, "That was no doubt right for the first-century Christians, but hardly workable for us today." But God's thoughts and ways are perfect, while our own thoughts lead us into "a way that is not good."
- Offer — God stretched out His hands all day. Verse 3 records what He got back, and it clears Him of injustice in turning to the nations.
- Substitution — They still sacrificed and brought offerings. But they did it in gardens and on altars of their own, not at the place God had chosen.
- Concealment — The garden was a screen. What they hid from human eyes, God says, they did straight in front of His.
- Wilfulness — Willingness in worship is right; wilfulness destroys it. High places always showed a heart that had not prepared to seek God.
- Delay — Israel seemed to drop idolatry after Babylon, but its full reckoning came later. Kelly adds that it will revive before the Lord appears.
who sit down among the graves, and lodge in the secret places; who eat swine's flesh, and broth of abominable things [is in] their vessels;
In Isaiah 65 God answers the prayer of the previous chapters. His answer opens with a charge sheet, and verse 4 is one item on it: tombs, hidden places, pig's flesh, tainted broth. Why did God's own people end up there?
Verses 1 and 2 announce that God is turning from Israel to the Gentiles. The list of sins that follows shows why He was right to do it.
Grace is sovereign. It goes out now to people who never once looked for it — to the ungodly Gentiles, who until now had no recognised relationship with God. In turning from Israel, God was fully justified by their sins. After all their advantages, the chosen people had caused His name to be blasphemed among the Gentiles. So He was most gracious in calling Gentiles, and most righteous in setting the Jew aside. Jehovah goes on to prove this by listing Israel's insulting wickedness in verses 3-5.
Yet the chapter does not condemn everyone. Within the same nation God draws a line.
Isaiah 65 is the reply to the prophet's prayer. God makes a difference between the nation and the remnant. He condemns the nation and saves the remnant. They own Christ the Servant, and they become Jehovah's servants all through.
God had already named one place and one way for worship. Israel chose otherwise.
The evil ways of Israel were mostly tied to idolatry, as verses 3-7 show. Deuteronomy 12 opens with the words, "These are the statutes and rules that you shall be careful to do in the land." Then come the bans on the high places, the groves or gardens, and the altars the pagan nations had made. God's way for them was to bring all their offerings to His place in Jerusalem, and to offer as He had commanded. But they preferred to worship according to their own thoughts. These verses describe the result. Their sacrifices were wrong. Their altars were wrong. The food they ate was wrong.
Isaiah also names the one meat the Jews would not touch.
The pig is one of the animals classed as unclean. The Jews are thought to have found it disgusting as food. Yet Isaiah charges them with eating pig's flesh. They had fallen so far from God that he says their offering was as if they had offered pig's blood. Their heartless profession of faith disgusted God.
Some object that these practices stopped after the return from Babylon. So the charge looks out of date. Kelly answers that prophecy looks past the nearest punishment, and that such religion will return.
But we must not forget how the Holy Spirit handles evil in prophecy. He deals with the evils of that time, or evils already under way. God's providential chastening, such as the conquest by Nebuchadnezzar, did not judge those evils… We must also keep in mind what we have seen already. Idolatry is to revive in the last days, when the Jews settle themselves in their land before the Lord appears. He will then judge the evil and establish the good, to bring in His millennial reign.
God said nothing for a long time. That silence was not the end of the matter.
It is hard not to think that the closing words of this divine rebuke show the long patience of God. They might flatter themselves that He, like them, took no notice of what their misdeeds really were. But judgment would prove otherwise in the end. He is unwilling to break His silence, yet He will repay the iniquities of both fathers and children.
One writer turns the charge round on the reader.
It is sadly easy to slip away from what the New Testament letters plainly state and to walk after our own thoughts. This is true above all in church matters. It is easy to say, "That was surely right for the first-century Christians, but it will not work for us today." But God's thoughts and ways are perfect, while our own thoughts lead us into "a way that is not good."
- Own thoughts — God appointed one place and one way. Israel chose gardens, tombs and forbidden food instead.
- Own defilement — the choice reached the dinner plate. They ate the meat they once refused to touch.
- Own judgment — God, not Israel, gives the verdict. He was right to turn away from them, and right to call Gentiles who never looked for Him.
- Own record — God's silence was not blindness. He will repay the iniquities of fathers and children alike.
- Own remnant — the same chapter that condemns the nation saves those who own Christ the Servant. The warning still stands for anyone who says God's revealed way suited the first Christians but not us.
who say, Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou. These are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burneth all the day.
Verse 5 comes at the end of God's charges against His people. It gives the boast that crowns them all: a religion whose whole content is keeping other people at a distance. These few words became the motto of religious pride, and God's answer to them is one of the sharpest lines in the prophets. (Where the older translations read "I am holier than thou," the ESV renders it "I am too holy for you.")
The chapter opens with God turning to nations that never sought Him. What follows in verses 3-5 is His evidence that this turn was just.
Grace is sovereign. It goes out now to those who never so much as looked for it — to the ungodly Gentiles, who until now had stood in no recognised relationship with God. In turning from Israel, God was fully justified by their sins. After all their advantages, the Gentiles blasphemed His name because of the chosen people. So He was most gracious in calling people from among the Gentiles, and most righteous in setting the Jew aside. The Lord goes on to prove this by listing Israel's insulting wickedness in verses 3-5.
The boast does not stand alone. It comes at the end of a list of things done against God's command: where they worshipped, what they offered, what they ate.
So God's way for them was to bring all their offerings to His place in Jerusalem, just as He had commanded. But they preferred to worship according to their own thoughts, and these verses describe the result. Their sacrifices were wrong. Their altars were wrong. The food they ate was wrong. And to crown it all they put on a show of holiness, which led them to say to others, "Keep to yourself, do not come near me; for I am holier than you."
What men treat as the badge of superior standing, God calls smoke in His nose. And the claim did not die with Israel.
The same evil principle has continued through the years, and it is all too plain today among those who profess to be Christians. Their positions may differ widely, both in doctrine and in church order. Yet there are those who demand separation — "Keep to yourself, do not come near me" — on the basis of a claim to greater holiness or spirituality, whichever it may be. Such separatists are as offensive to God as "smoke in My nostrils, a fire that burns all the day."
The Pharisees were the strictest religious party of Jesus' day. One writer traces their motto back to this verse.
The very essence of their religion consisted in outward separation from sinners. That was the badge of their piety. Their motto was, "Keep to yourself, for I am holier than you" (Isa. 65:5); their self-satisfied language, "God, I thank you that I am not like other men" (Luke 18:11). Subtract these two elements from their profession and you leave nothing but an outward show.
Scripture does call God's people to be separate. So the verse forces a distinction — and everything hangs on which ground a person stands on.
There is a great difference between being separate on the ground of what we are, and of what God is. The former makes a man a Pharisee; the latter makes him a saint. If I say to a poor fellow-sinner, "Keep to yourself; I am holier than you," I am a detestable Pharisee and a hypocrite. But God, in His boundless grace, stoops to say to me, "I have brought you into relationship with Myself in the person of My Son Jesus Christ, therefore be holy and separate from all evil." That command I am bound to obey.
Even a right stand can be spoiled. Daniel and his friends show how it should be done.
Separation from defilement is always God's path for His saints, but much depends on the spirit they show as they take it. Take it in a harsh or proud spirit instead of a meek and lowly one, and the testimony to others is destroyed. Suppose our spirit in taking it is marked by "Keep to yourself, do not come near me; for I am holier than you." That was the spirit of the Pharisees of our Lord's day. Then we shall be helping the very evil we claim to be separating from. Daniel and his friends sought their separation, and kept it, in the right spirit.
Isaiah does not leave the boast unanswered. The rest of the chapter divides the nation in two and reverses the verdict men had made.
The oppressing hypocrites say they are holier than the others (Isa. 65:5); but God says they are a smoke in His nose. Just as proud professing Christian leaders today cast the best believers out of the assembly (see 3 John), so these men cast out the real servants here (Isa. 66:5); but the Lord is at hand with judgment for the wicked and full blessing for His servants.
- Cause — The people worshipped their own way instead of God's, then crowned it with a show of holiness.
- Claim — "I am holier than you" was not a stray remark but a whole religion. It became the Pharisees' motto and the language of Luke 18:11.
- Verdict — What men wore as a badge of holiness, God calls smoke in His nostrils, a fire burning all day long.
- Contrast — Separating because of what I am makes a Pharisee. Separating because of what God is makes a saint.
- Test — A harsh or proud spirit in taking a stand destroys the witness. Daniel held the same separation in a lowly spirit.
Behold, it is written before me I will not keep silence, but will recompense, even recompense into their bosom,
In Isaiah 65 God gives His reasons for turning away from Israel, and then He passes sentence. Two hard questions come with it: why has God stayed silent so long, and what is this account already written before Him?
Verse 6 sits inside a larger turn. God is reaching out to the Gentiles, the nations outside Israel, who never looked for Him. And He is setting Israel aside for good reason.
Grace is sovereign. It goes out now to those who never even looked for it — to the ungodly Gentiles, who had until now stood in no recognised relationship with God. But in turning from Israel, God was fully justified by their sins. They had every advantage, yet through them the Gentiles blasphemed His name.
The words picture a record already filed with God, not a case still being assembled.
Yet the judgment will not be separate from God's records, nor separate from their works. God will judge them not for what He knew them to be, but for what they had shown themselves to be in their outward actions. He had kept a record of those actions. It is striking that the Old Testament closes by speaking of "a book of remembrance" written before the Lord in favour of the godly, while the New Testament closes by speaking of "the things written in the books," which condemn the ungodly.
The people took God's long quiet as proof that He did not mind.
It is hard not to think that the closing words of this rebuke point to the long patience of God. The people might flatter themselves that He, like them, took no notice of what their misdeeds really were. In the end, judgement would prove otherwise. However unwilling He is to break His silence, He will repay the sins of both fathers and children.
A repayment that reaches back to the fathers' sins strikes many readers as unfair. Commentators answer that the later generation sins with its fathers' story in full view.
The last generation will do as their fathers did, only with more open evil later on. Then judgement will fall… This may seem a hard principle to some, but it is entirely right. Picture a child who has grown up knowing his father's dishonour, and who has heard of his disgrace and punishment. If he had any right feeling, would not that sin look especially hateful to him?… But suppose the son treated it lightly and took it as an encouragement to walk the same path. Is it not just that an even heavier punishment should fall on that son?
The silence is not empty time. It is mercy, and it has an end.
People are asking today: why does God stay silent and not step in? But when He speaks next, it will be in judgment. Then this Scripture will come true: "Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him" (Rev. 1:7). Today we have the silence of God, and His day of mercy stretched out long. When He speaks again, it will be a matter of His rule — and who will stand then?
That sentence raises one more question: is the nation finished?
This might seem to threaten total and hopeless ruin for the ancient people. But no: God had promised. He will certainly judge the people's unfaithfulness, yet it cannot cancel His promises of grace.
- Written. God keeps the record. Judgment rests on what people actually did, not on what God alone knew them to be.
- Silent. God's long quiet is patience. The people mistook it for indifference.
- Broken. The silence ends. The next word God speaks is judgment.
- Measured. God repays fathers and children together, because the later generation sinned knowing how their fathers' story ended.
- Spared. The sentence is real, but not total. Human failure cannot cancel what God has promised in grace.
your iniquities, and the iniquities of your fathers together, saith Jehovah, who have burned incense upon the mountains, and outraged me upon the hills; and I will measure their former work into their bosom.
Isaiah 65:7 reads like a charge sheet. God names the sin, names the place, and fixes the sentence. Two questions follow. Why does God bring the fathers' sins into the account? And what does He mean by "payment for their former deeds" after so long a silence?
One writer hears in the closing words of this rebuke the length of God's patience — a patience the people had mistaken for indifference.
It is hard not to think that the closing words of this rebuke show the long patience of God. They might flatter themselves that He, like them, took no notice of what kind of deeds they were doing. But judgement would prove in the end that He repays the iniquities of both fathers and children, however unwilling He is to break His silence.
The verse names the place: mountains and hills. Israel worshipped where the Canaanites had worshipped, and God had ruled those sites out long before.
These high places offended Jehovah deeply. They showed the people's neglect, and even their contempt, for the centre He had chosen. He had plainly commanded them to destroy all the images of the Canaanites and to wreck their high places. Before he died, Moses told the people that they would find the land full of idols. There were places of worship "on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree." All this expressed the self-will of people who knew nothing of God.
The verse says they insulted God on the hills. What their worship said about Him spread far beyond Israel. In this chapter God turns to nations who never sought Him, and Israel's sins justify that turn.
Grace is sovereign, and it now goes out to those who never even looked for it — to the ungodly Gentiles, who until then stood in no recognised relationship with God. But in turning from Israel God was fully justified by Israel's iniquities. After all their advantages, the nations blasphemed His name because of His chosen people. So He was most gracious in calling from among the Gentiles, and most righteous in discarding the Jew.
Why should one generation answer for another? A family picture shows the justice of it.
This may seem a hard principle to some, but it is most righteous. Suppose a child grew up knowing his father's dishonour, hearing of his disgrace and punishment. If any right feeling was left in him, would that sin not be especially hateful in his eyes? The public example of his father's evil ways would always be before him. But suppose the son treated it lightly and used it as encouragement to walk the same path. Is it not just that a still more severe punishment should fall on that son?
So the past made the children more guilty, not less.
The very sins of the fathers should have warned their children to avoid the same offences. The children sinned after their fathers had sinned, so they sinned in the light. But they persisted in them, and so heaped up wrath for the day of judgment.
Did this sentence ever fall? One writer answers, and warns that the same evil comes back.
Some have objected that these idolatries and superstitions did not occur after the return from Babylon. But the judgement of those evils was not settled by chastisements in God's providence, such as the conquest by Nebuchadnezzar. The evil ways which Isaiah describes met no full condemnation until God turned the stream of His calling into other channels. The judicial sentence, so long suspended from the days of the prophet, only fell in full weight in gospel times. We must also remember that idolatry is to revive in the latter days, when the Jews settle in their land before the Lord appears, judging the evil and establishing the good.
The measured payment is not the end of the chapter. Out of the very people under sentence, God keeps something for Himself.
Here God separates the remnant. Jehovah acts in His name of might and majesty. Out of Jacob and Judah — out of all this evil — He brings a Seed, an Inheritor, His elect, His servants.
- Record. Nothing was forgotten. His silence was patience, not indifference. In the end He repays the iniquities of fathers and children alike.
- Place. The mountains and hills were the nations' worship sites. Worshipping there showed contempt for the one centre God had chosen. It was self-will, not devotion.
- Name. Israel's advantages made the offence worse. Through them the nations blasphemed God's name, so His turn to people who never sought Him was just.
- Measure. Inherited sin excuses no one. A son who knows his father's disgrace and copies it sins in the light, and so heaps up wrath.
- Remnant. After the measuring, God still brings a seed out of Jacob and Judah. They are His elect, His servants, taken out of the very evil He judged.