John Calvin Commentary Isaiah 5:25

"Therefore is the anger of Jehovah kindled against his people, and he hath stretched forth his hand against them, and hath smitten them; and the mountains tremble, and their dead bodies are as refuse in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still." — Isaiah 5:25 (ASV)

Therefore is the anger of the LORD kindled. In this verse the Prophet relates the former punishments which the Jews had already endured, and shows that they are not near an end; but that, on the contrary, heavier judgments await them, if they do not return to the right path.

I readily acknowledge that the past tense is frequently employed instead of the future, but the meaning which I have stated will best agree with the context. For there are two things quite distinct from each other, which he lays down, on account of the resolute obstinacy of the people:

1. How God perceives their crimes.
2. Since there are no signs of repentance, he has other scourges within his reach for chastising the people.
3. He describes what those scourges are, and forewarns them that the Assyrians will come at the bidding of the Lord, as soon as he shall express it by merely hissing to them (Isaiah 5:26).

Such is the connection of what the Prophet states. Therefore, it should be observed that most people, as soon as they have escaped any calamity, forget their chastisements and no longer regard them as God's judgments. Even though experience is the instructor of fools, they still grow hardened by strokes.

Isaiah sharply rebukes this insensibility, as if he had said, “Have you so quickly forgotten the calamities under which you lately groaned? From where came the distressing casting out of dead bodies, but because God had raised his arm against you? And if God has discharged the office of a judge, why do not those recent chastisements induce you to fear him, and to refrain from drawing down a succession of chastisements by new crimes?”

Accordingly, he repeats the term על-כן (gnal ken), therefore. It is as if he had said that those distresses are not accidental but are manifest tokens of God’s vengeance. So he expressly says that God was angry with his people.

For if the Jews had not fallen from their own rank, their condition would have been happier than that of any other nation. When God’s chosen people, therefore, are treated by him with so much sharpness and severity, it is beyond all doubt that he has been provoked by heinous crimes. At the same time, he refutes the false boasting by which the Jews were used to boast and exalt themselves, as if they ought to be exempt from chastisements on the ground of their being God’s peculiar people.

And the mountains trembled. By this comparison, the dreadful nature of those punishments to which they were insensible is described in such a manner as to prove more clearly the stupidity of the people. They were more stupid than inanimate objects if they did not perceive the wrath of God and the dreadful vengeance which had been inflicted on the kingdom of Israel.

For all these things. He threatens heavier chastisements in the future, as we have already said. For although wicked men acknowledge that the Lord has punished them, they still think that they have no right to expect anything more than one or two chastisements.

As if, therefore, nothing worse could befall them, and as if God’s power to punish them had been exhausted, they wrap themselves up in blind indifference. This is the reason he exclaims that the wrath of God is not yet appeased. Although God's wrath has inflicted many calamities on them, it still has in its stores many weapons from which they have reason to dread innumerable wounds.

The copulative ו (vau) may be taken as a disjunctive, so as to mean, but, on the contrary, his hand is stretched out still. He refers to what he had formerly said, that the hand of God is stretched out. He tells them that it is not yet drawn back, and that it may yet pursue them and inflict plagues of the same kind, or even of greater severity.

We should diligently meditate on these statements to shake off that drowsiness to which most people are frequently liable, even after receiving chastisements.