Isaiah 26:20

Second, the immunity of the people of God: go, my people; enter into your chambers, tombs, or literally, the fortifications in which they sometimes carefully kept themselves, below: in a moment of indignation have I hid my face a little while from you, but with …

We must be faith find a way into these chambers, and there hide ourselves; that is, with a holy security and serenity of mind, we must put ourselves under the divine protection. Come, as Noah into the ark, for he shut the doors about him. When dangers are threatening it is good to retire, and lie hid, as Elijah did by the brook Cherith.

Shut thy doors - Withdraw thyself from the world, and pour out thy prayers to God in thy closet. Indignation - The dreadful effects of God's anger, mentioned in the following verse.

Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers,....

And this is written for the support and assistance of the faith and hope of God's people in all ages, even those upon whom the ends of the world have come. The Blessings of the Gospel.

Comes my people, enter thou into thy chambers - An exhortation to patience and resignation under oppression, with a confident expectation of deliverance by the power of God manifestly to be exerted in the destruction of the oppressor. It seems to be an allusion to the command of Moses to the Israelites, when the destroying angel was to go through the land of Egypt, “not to go out at the door of their houses until the morning;” Exo 12:22. And before the passage of the Red Sea: “Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of Jehovah.

enter . . . chambers--When God is about to take vengeance on the ungodly, the saints shall be shut in by Him in a place of safety, as Noah and his family were in the days of the flood (Ge 7:16), and as Israel was commanded not to go out of doors on the night of the slaying of the Egyptian first-born (Ex 12:22, 23;

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THE Lord has a very peculiar care for His own people. He is their Shepherd and He feeds them like a flock. He is their Father and He guards them as His own dear children. Whenever times of great trouble come, He thinks especially of them. He drowned the antediluvian world, but not till Noah was safely in the ark. He burned Sodom and Gomorrah, but not till Lot had escaped to the little city called Zoar.

THE Lord has a very peculiar care for His own people. He is their Shepherd and He feeds them like a flock. He is their Father and He guards them as His own dear children. Whenever times of great trouble come, He thinks especially of them. He drowned the antediluvian world, but not till Noah was safely in the ark. He burned Sodom and Gomorrah, but not till Lot had escaped to the little city called Zoar. In all His judgments He remembers His mercy towards His believing people—He does not suffer them to be destroyed even in the day of the destruction of the ungodly. Child of God, your Father's eyes are lovingly fixed upon you. His heart cares for you every moment. Unhappy are the men and women of whom we cannot say this! Unhappy are you who have never trusted and never loved your God, your Maker, and your best Friend! But thrice happy is the poorest and most tried among us who knows that the Lord is his refuge, his castle and high tower, his Defender and Provider, his God and his All! Whenever there is any evil to come upon the land, God knows all about it, for He knows everything. He foresees all that is going to happen. He sometimes gives foresight to men, as in the case of His Prophets and, I do not doubt that even now, believing men, when they live very near to God, see farther into the future than others can. There were several occasions, in the life of John Linox, when he expressly foretold the deaths of certain men, and similar power has been given to other eminent saints who have walked on the hilltop with God.

Come, my people - This is an epilogue (Rosenmuller), in which the choir addresses the people, and entreats them to be tranquil during that convulsion by which their oppressors would be punished, and the way made for their deliverance. The image is taken from seeking a shelter when a storm rages, until its fury is spent. The address is to the captive Jews in Babylon. The tempest that would rage would be the wars and commotions by which Babylon was to be overthrown. While that storm raged, they were exhorted to be calm and serene. Enter thou into thy chambers - Into places of retirement, where the storm of indignation on your enemies shall not reach or affect you. Hide thyself as it were ... - Do not mingle in the scenes of battle, lest you should partake of the general calamity. For a little moment - Implying that the war would not rage long. Babylon was taken in a single night (see the notes at Isa. 13; 14), and the call here is for the people of God to be calm while this battle should rage in which the city should be taken. Until the indignation ... - Not, as Lowth supposes, the indignation of God against his people, but the storm of his indignation against their enemies the Babylonians. That would be soon ‘overpast,’ the city would be taken, the storms of war would cease to rage, and then they would be delivered, and might safely return to their own land.