Commentary upon the Prophecy of Isaiah

This verse sufficiently manifests that the Lord complains as one that had lost all his labour, in teaching a people obstinate and unteachable.¹ For the case was all one as if a man should take upon him to instruct little children, to whom he must repeat the letters over and over, who yet immediately forget what was taught them. For although the Master should spend a whole day in teaching them a letter, yet the next day he must begin his labour afresh, and so the next to that likewise, and yet he shall gain nothing by it, albeit he bestows all the pains and skill he hath. Those who change the Prophets words here, that they might not offend the ears of the readers, do by an affected phrase of speech corrupt the sense, and cause his words to lose that grace which otherwise is in them: for in repeating the same words, he meant to signify a variable and continual repetition, which we know is very troublesome. For it is a similitude drawn (as we have said) from little children, whose memories the Master dares not charge with any great matter, because they are uncapable of it, but is ⟨p. 273⟩fain to distil the first principles into them as it were drop by drop. And for that cause he repeats the same thing once, twice, yea, many times, and is still refreshing their memories with their old lesson. In a word, such scholars must be always fed with milk, until they be grown to more maturity and ripeness of judgement.