Commentary upon the Prophecy of Isaiah

THE LXV. CHAPTER.

Vers. 1. I have been sought of them that asked not, I was found of them that sought me not: I said; Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that called not upon my name.

Vers. 1. I haue been sought of them that asked not, I was found of them that sought me not: I said; Behold me, behold me, vnto a nation that called not vpon my name.

¹Now the Prophet passeth over to the handling of another point of doctrine. For he shows that God hath just cause to reject and cast off the Jews, because neither admonitions, nor threatenings would serve the turn to reclaim them from their errors, nor to bring them again into the right way. But to the end they should not imagine that the covenant of the Lord should therefore be broken; he adds, that another people, which then were of none account, should come to him; and that his name should be honoured and magnified in the places where he was unknown before. The Jews thought this very strange, and judged thereof altogether contrary to that covenant which God had contracted with Abraham; ⟨p. 651⟩namely, that such a grace should be communicated to any other nation, then to his posterity. But the Prophet meant to pluck this vain confidence away from them, to the end they should not imagine that God was only tied to the posterity of Abraham. For the Lord bound not himself unto them, but upon a certain condition: which if they happened to break, they were to be held as traitors and disloyal; and so by consequence, deprived of the fruit of this covenant. Besides, the covenant was not only made with Abraham and with his posterity, according to the flesh, but also with all such as should be ingrafted into the family of this Patriarch by faith. But it shall be more convenient for us to begin at the second verse, that so we may the better understand, the Prophets meaning: for there the cause of this rejection is expressed.