Commentary upon the Prophecy of Isaiah

Vers. 1. Thus saith the Lord; Where is that bill of your mothers divorcement, whom I have cast off? or who is the creditor to whom I sold you? Behold, for your iniquities are you sold; and because of your transgressions is your mother forsaken.

Vers. 1. Thus saith the Lord; Where is that bill of your mothers diuorcement, whom I haue cast off? or who is the creditor to whom I sold you? Behold, for your iniquities are you sold; and because of your transgressions is your mother forsaken.

¹This place is diversly expounded: but very few have attained the Prophets meaning. To the end we may have the sum briefly, we must note this conjunction, whereby the Lord in many places testifies, that his people are obliged and bound unto him: namely, that he is as it were our husband, and we his wife: for it is a spiritual marriage consecrated by his eternal word, and sealed up with the blood of Jesus Christ.² As he then for his part receives us into his protection as his beloved wife, upon condition that we keep faith and loyalty towards him: so when we play false with him, he rejects us; and then it is rightly said, that he puts us away: even as if a husband should banish an adulterous wife his house. Now, because we could not easily conceive the reason why God should reject the Jews which were pressed under so many and great calamities, it was necessary she should here come to manifest the cause of this divorce. But for as much as we are ordinarily too eloquent in covering of our own faults, and strive to lay all the blame where we should not; that is to say, upon God himself: so the Jews also then murmured at their estate, as if the Lord had done them wrong so to reject them. Why so? Because they could not be brought to acknowledge that the promises were made uneffectual, and the covenant abolished by their lewd behaviour. At least they could not be drawn to make this confession, but with much ado: for they posted over their fault to their predecessors, as if they forsooth had borne the punishment of their offences. From thence proceeded those complaints recited by Ezekiel; Our fathers have eaten sower grapes, and our teeth are set on edge: