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We have here a personification of that attribute of God which is specially employed in words of counsel and admonition, and is here made to represent God. The voice of Wisdom is the voice of God.

I. THE MERCIFUL APPEAL OF GOD TO SINNERS, AND ITS REJECTION.

1. God is said to call.

2. God is said to stretch out His hand. In the gesture of earnest appeal, making use of arguments of deed as well as of word. Providence warns. The hand of God in history demonstrates what providence in its dealings with individuals teaches, that virtue and happiness, vice and misery, go hand in hand; that morality and self-interest in the long run merge; that the path of duty and the path of safety coincide.

3. God is said to counsel. The message of Scripture, with its manifold invitations and warnings, is faithfully delivered.

4. God is said to reprove. By severe strokes of discipline God speaks to those who in their infatuation have refused to pay attention to His former appeals. But the rod of correction may be disregarded. The possibility of such reckless opposition to the merciful appeal of God demonstrates the power of the evil principle in fallen human nature. We have here a complete reversal of the ordinary principles of self-interest which actuate men in all circumstances, except in the sphere of morality.

II. THE DESPAIRING APPEAL OF SINNERS TO GOD, AND ITS FUTILITY. Their position, as here depicted —

1. It is unspeakably awful. The text speaks of calamity, of fear, of desolation, of destruction like a whirlwind, of distress and anguish. The text speaks of a terrible aggravation of their distress, occasioned by the stinging sarcasm which accompanies their suffering.

2. It is strictly retributive. All their suffering has been earned by themselves. As they formerly eluded Him in His efforts to seek and to save them, so now He will not be found of them.

3. It is utterly hopeless. The futility of their appeal is absolute. Their cry is the cry of blank despair. They have sinned away their day of grace, and their offended God will be entreated of them no more. It may be said that the moral sense is shocked by such a representation of God's conduct towards impenitent sinners as that which we have drawn from the text. Our reply is, that it is presumptuous for any mortal to say what is, and what is not, in harmony with the Divine perfection, or consistent with the Divine character. In nature we know God can assume an attitude of sternness. In the moral sphere there may be occasions when He shall stand forth as an inflexible Ruler, as an immovable, righteous Judge.

(A. O. Smith, B. A.)

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KJV: Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded;

WEB: Because I have called, and you have refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no one has paid attention;