Isaiah 57:19

But let us humble our own souls by almsgiving and forgiving our neighbors their trespasses, by not remembering injuries or avenging ourselves. If we continually reflect on our sins, no external circumstances can make us elated, neither riches, nor power, nor authority nor honor; no, even should we sit in the imperial chariot itself, we cry bitterly.

Some understand this passage specifically about the Savior, that he was deeply grieved for the sins of the world, saying: My soul is sorrowful even to death (Matthew 26:38). And the Father who speaks through Zacharias says: I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered (Zech. XIII, 7); and he himself says of himself in the sixty-eighth psalm: Because it is you who have struck, they have persecuted (Psalm LXVIII, 27).

Third, he confirms their deliverance from the predictions of the prophets: I created, as though restoring them from nothing; the fruit of the lips, of the prophets who foretold these things, peace to him that is far off, dispersed in captivity: and coming, he preached …

Peace - That peace which is not wrought by mens hands, but only by God's lips or word. The doubling of the word signifies the certainty and abundance this peace. Far off - To the Gentiles who are far from God, as well as to the Jews, who are called a people near unto God, Psalm 1xlviii, 14.

This peace is itself of God's creating. He, and he only, can work it; it is the fruit of the lips, of his lips--he commands it, of the minister's lips--he speaks it by them, ch. xl. It is the fruit of preaching lips and praying lips; it is the fruit of Christ's lips, whose lips drop as a honeycomb; for to him this is applied, Eph. ii.

I create the fruit of the lips,.... Which is praise and thanksgiving, Heb 13:16 that is, give occasion of it, afford matter for it, by restoring comforts to the church and its mourners, as in the preceding verse; and by giving peace, as in all the following words.

Peace, peace--"perfect peace" (see Isa 26:3, Margin; Primarily, the cessation of the troubles now afflicting the Jews, as formerly, under the Babylonian exile. More generally, the peace which the Gospel proclaims both to Israel "that is near," and to the Gentiles who are "far off" (Ac 2:39;

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — unbalanced-parens

An unrenewed tongue is almost worse than an unregenerate heart because, bad as the heart may be, there is heart in it—the tongue is often heartless—a mere sounding sham with no reality to support its bronze noise. Too many speak with the lips and their heart is not in what they say. If the lips become the instruments of hypocrisy and if the fruit of the lips is only the fruit of the lips, it is comparable to the apples of Sodom. The lips, moreover, cause pain and evil all around, which the heart, alone, cannot do.

An unrenewed tongue is almost worse than an unregenerate heart because, bad as the heart may be, there is heart in it—the tongue is often heartless—a mere sounding sham with no reality to support its bronze noise. Too many speak with the lips and their heart is not in what they say. If the lips become the instruments of hypocrisy and if the fruit of the lips is only the fruit of the lips, it is comparable to the apples of Sodom. The lips, moreover, cause pain and evil all around, which the heart, alone, cannot do. The heart is as an oven closed up. The tongue is a fire raging abroad, setting on flame the course of nature when it is, itself, set on fire by Hell. The lips of the wicked are like the upas tree which drips poison. We could readily dispense with the fruit of the lips as it comes from uncircumcised and unclean lips. Go out and gather a basketful of the fruit of the lips—gossiping, bickering, fault-finding, murmuring, nonsense, vanity, falsehood, boasting, infidelity. I will not tell you all that I might put into that basket! Certainly, if it were to be shred and poured out into the broth of daily life, we would soon have to say as they did who threw the wild cucumber into the pottage, "O man of God, there is death in the pot!" The fruit of the lips tends to vanity, to poverty, to sorrow, to shame, to death. The fruit of the lips is just what the root of an unrenewed, unregenerate heart causes it to be. You remember AEsop and how wisely he kept his master's command when he bade him provide for dinner the best things he could and when they came together he set out tongues—nothing else but tongues! His master was pleased with his wit, though I am afraid the guests did not relish it and he ordered him, the next time, to provide for dinner the worst things he possibly could.

I create the fruit of the lips - “The sacrifice of praise,” saith St. Paul, Heb 13:15, “is the fruit of the lips.” God creates this fruit of the lips, by giving new subject and cause of thanksgiving by his mercies conferred on those among his people, who acknowledge and bewail their transgressions, and return to him. The great subject of thanksgiving is peace, reconciliation and pardon, offered to them that are nigh, and to them that are afar off, not only to the Jew, but also to the Gentile, as St. Paul more than once applies those terms, Eph 2:13, Eph 2:17. See also Act 2:39. Peace to him that is far off “That is, to the penitent; and to him that is near, i.e., the righteous.” - Kimchi.