Commentary upon the Prophecy of Isaiah

Vers. 5. Wherefore should ye be smitten any more? for you fall away more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart is heavy.

Vers. 5. Wherefore should ye be smitten any more? for you fall away more and more: the whole head is sicke, and the whole heart is heauie.

Wherefore should] &c. Some do turn it, upon what? or, in what part? And they take it as if the Lord should say, There are no more plagues left to strike you withal. For he had tried so many ways to bring them into the right way, that there was no chastisement left. But I had rather interpret it, Wherefore, or, to what purpose? As also the Hebrew word imports so much; and withal I take it that the sense seems to agree best thereto. For so we are wont to say, wherefore; to what purpose, &c. His meaning is then, that the Jews are grown to such a pitch of wickedness and ungodliness, that it is impossible to make them become any whit better. We know by experience that after desperate men have once hardened their hearts, then they will rather be broken all to pieces then receive any correction. Now he complains that there was such an obstinacy in them, even as if the Physician having assayed all good remedies to cure his diseased patient, should begin to say at the last, All the skill I have, will do no good. And withal he accuseth them of extreme malice: for when the wicked are come to that pass that chastisements will not humble them, then are they come to the very top of all wickedness. So then it is as much as if the Lord had said, I see very well, that though I should correct you never so much, yet I shall do you no good. For questionless things are then become wholly desperate when the chastisements and calamities which God useth as remedies to heal our vices, will profit us nothing. And yet for all that the Lord is so far off from ceasing to punish such still, that (which more is) it stirs up and inflames his wrath so much the more against us: For there is nothing more burdensome to him, then such an obstinacy. Notwithstanding it is rightly said, that he loseth his labour, when he cannot thereby draw us to repentance: and that all the remedies he applies to a people so utterly past cure are in vain. So then he is so far off from sparing such, that he not only doubles his blows and afflictions upon them, trying all means possible: but he is constrained never to give over till he hath utterly consumed them. But then indeed he plays not the part of a Physician, but rather of the Surgeon: which is the cause why he so laments here, that his chastisements shall now become unprofitable to the people.