John Calvin Commentary Isaiah 1:19

"If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:" — Isaiah 1:19 (ASV)

If ye be willing and obedient, Isaiah continues to plead God's cause against the people. He states in a few words that not only must the people bear the blame for all the calamities they endured, but also that it lies in their own power to immediately regain prosperity and happiness, because God is always ready to forgive them, provided that they do not harden their hearts.

However, because happiness appears here to be placed in human power and at their disposal, the papists openly maintain that people, by the exercise of their own will, are free to choose either good or evil. When God charges people with obstinacy, we must not on that account believe that He is describing the nature or extent of their ability.

But it would be useless to say, if ye be willing, unless it were in human power to will. I answer, though the choice is not so free as they pretend it is, yet sinners are justly chargeable with being the voluntary agents of their calamities, because it is of their own accord, and not by compulsion, that they provoke God to anger.

It is therefore true that it is a special gift of God when a person aims at what is good. However, it is equally true that it is their own wickedness that hinders the reprobate from applying their mind to it, and, consequently, that the whole blame for their obstinacy rests with themselves.

On this depends the reproach brought against the people: that they would have led a prosperous and happy life if they had been submissive and obedient to God. For since God is by nature disposed to acts of kindness, nothing but our ingratitude and enmity hinders us from receiving that goodness which He freely offers to all.

On the other hand, He adds a sharp and heavy threatening that it is in His power to take vengeance, so that they should not imagine that those who despise God will escape without punishment. It ought also to be observed that the only rule of living well is to yield obedience to God and His word; for to will and to hear mean nothing else than to comply with the will of God.

A change of the construction of the words (hypallage) has been admitted into this sentence. The meaning fully brought out would stand thus: “If your mind is ready, and your will is disposed, to obey;” or, which amounts to the same thing, “If you render obedience to Me, and lend an ear to My word.”

Since, therefore, God places human happiness in obedience, it follows that our life is properly conducted when we hear God speaking and obey Him in all things. How great, therefore, is the wickedness of people when they refuse to listen to God who is continually speaking to them, and reject the happiness which He has provided and offered!

It was proper that their wayward dispositions should be subdued, so that those wretched people would not draw down on themselves God's wrath, and willingly throw themselves, like wild beasts, on the edge of the sword. We must likewise observe that He at length threatens them with final destruction if they obstinately refuse to submit themselves to God.

Ye shall eat the good of the land. He means the fruits which the earth yields for supplying the necessities of life; for in some sense the earth may be said to be unkind when it does not produce its fruits and keeps them, as it were, in its bosom.

Yet I have no doubt He alludes to the promises of the law, in which God declares that to those who fear Him He will bless the earth and will cause it to produce a great abundance of all good things.

The Lord shall make thee plenteous in the fruit of the ground, in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers to give thee. (Deuteronomy 28:11)

And yet, when He offers to us the conveniences of the earthly life, it is not because He wishes that our attention should be confined to our present happiness, which alone hypocrites value and which entirely occupies their minds. Rather, it is so that by contemplating it, we may rise to the heavenly life, and that by tasting so much goodness, He may prepare us for the enjoyment of eternal happiness.

More especially, God was accustomed to act in this manner towards the ancient people, so that by tasting present benefits, as by a shadow, they might be called to the heavenly inheritance. This distinction ought to be carefully observed, so that we may apply this instruction to ourselves, according to the degree of prosperity to which God has exalted us.

The Prophet intended to show that true happiness, with its accompaniments, consists in obedience to God. He also intended to show that the wicked, by their obstinacy, bring upon themselves every kind of calamity, and therefore that all our distresses ought to be ascribed to the sins and crimes we have committed.