Isaiah 34 A running commentary Point 2

Verses 1-8 Continued

Here then, is the manifesto published, setting forth, seven points to consider.

Point two.

2) Whom he makes war for, and what are the grounds and reasons of the war.

Isaiah 34:8

For the Lord has a day of vengeance,

    a year of retribution, to uphold Zion’s cause.

It is the day of the Lord’s vengeance, and he it is to whom vengeance belongs, and who is never unrighteous in taking vengeance, Romans 3:5 "But if our unrighteousness brings out God’s righteousness more clearly, what shall we say? That God is unjust in bringing his wrath on us? (I am using a human argument.)." As there is a day of the Lord’s patience, so there will be a day of his vengeance; for, though he bear long, he will not bear always. Just because he is patient, doesn't mean he will always be. It is the year of recompences for the case of Zion. Zion is the holy city, the city of our solemnities, a type and figure of the church of God in the world. Zion has a just quarrel with her neighbours for the wrongs they have done her, for all their treacherous and barbarous usage of her, profaning her holy things, laying waste her palaces, and slaying her sons. She has left it to God to plead her cause, and he will do so when the time, even the set time, to favour Zion shall have come; then he will recompense to her persecutors and oppressors all the mischiefs they have done her. The charge will be decided, that Zion has been wronged, and therein Zion’s God has been himself abused. Judgment will be given upon this decision, and execution done. There is a time prefixed in the divine counsels for the deliverance of the church and the destruction of her enemies, a year of the redeemed, which will come, a year of recompences for the accusation of Zion; and we must patiently wait till then, and judge nothing before the time.