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"For My name's sake will I defer Mine anger, and for My praise will I refrain for thee,
that I cut thee not off" (Isa. 48: 9).
These words introduce the expression "I have refined thee, but not with silver", and
partly explain it.
The sufferings through which Israel had passed, had not at that point resulted in their
perfect refining, that day was yet future, but the Lord had put a limit to His anger, and at
the end of the period of seventy years He had raised up Cyrus and not utterly cut off
Israel. In other words, the restoration that took place in the days of old was but a faint
shadow of the restoration that shall take place in the Day of the Lord.
To the English ear, the phrase "but not with silver" does not make very good sense.
The Hebrew participle B usually translated "in" comes to mean "with, "by" or "at" by
reason of the innate sense of nearness resident in the word, and so in some instances it
takes on the meaning `like' or `as'.
What Isaiah intends us to understand is that the refining of Israel up to that point was
`not like silver' is refined, it was a temporary return but by no means final or complete.
There is to be a future refining that shall completely and for ever separate Israel to the
Lord and from all evil. A movement in this direction is indicated in verse 20:
"Go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans",
this had an immediate partial fulfillment in the days of Cyrus, but will have its real
fulfillment in the Day of the Lord:
"And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, come out of her, My people, that ye
be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues" (Rev. 18: 4).
So ends the first great section of the second half of Isaiah.
"Comfort ye, comfort ye My people" are the words with which it opens (Isa. 40: 1).
The fall of Babylon and with the words "There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the
wicked" (Isa. 48: 22) are the subjects with which it is brought to a close.
We are now about to enter the second great section of this part of Isaiah, and instead
of Babylon and Cyrus, or Hezekiah and Sennacherib, we are brought face to face with
"The sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow", a subject which has had the
whole of the prophecy as a preparation, and without which the glorious restoration, which
is its burning vision, would for ever be beyond attainment or hope.