Wilt thou refrain thyself - Wilt thou refuse to come to our aid? Wilt thou decline to visit us, and save us from our calamities?

Wilt thou hold thy peace - Wilt thou not speak for our rescue, and command us to be delivered? Thus closes this chapter of great tenderness and beauty. It is a model of affectionate and earnest entreaty for the divine interposition in the day of calamity. With such tender and affectionate earnestness may we learn to plead with God! Thus may all his people learn to approach him as a Father: thus feel that they have the inestimable privilege, in times of trial, of making known their needs to the High and Holy One. Thus, when calamity presses on us; when as individuals or as families we are afflicted; or when our country or the church is suffering under long trials, may we go to God and humbly confess our sins, and urge his promises, and take hold of his strength, and plead with him to interpose. Thus pleading, be will hear us; thus presenting our cause, he will interpose to save.

Wilt thou refrain thyself for these things, O Lord?.... From delivering us out of our troubles and miseries, and taking vengeance on our enemies, and showing thy zeal for thine own glory; or, as Kimchi paraphrases it,

"how canst thou contain thyself for these things, and not have mercy?''

how canst thou bear to see Judea, and all its cities, a wilderness; Jerusalem, and the temple of it, in ruins?

wilt thou hold thy peace? or, "be silent"; and not plead thine own cause, and the cause of thy people?

and afflict us very sore? exceedingly, even to extremity; or for ever, as the Targum, thinking it long, as well as heavy. Jerom observes, that the Jews say these words in their synagogues every day; which show that they look upon this prophecy to respect their present case.

Wilt thou restrain thyself {n} for these things, O LORD? wilt thou hold thy peace, and grievously afflict us?

(n) That is, at the contempt of your own glory? Though our sins have deserved this, yet you will not permit your glory thus to be diminished.

64:12 Wilt thou - Do none of these things move thee to take vengeance? Thy peace - Wilt thou be as one that regards not?

12. for these things-Wilt Thou, notwithstanding these calamities of Thy people, still refuse Thy aid (Isa 42:14)?

64:6-12 The people of God, in affliction, confess and bewail their sins, owning themselves unworthy of his mercy. Sin is that abominable thing which the Lord hates. Our deeds, whatever they may seem to be, if we think to merit by them at God's hand, are as rags, and will not cover us; filthy rags, and will but defile us. Even our few good works in which there is real excellence, as fruits of the Spirit, are so defective and defiled as done by us, that they need to be washed in the fountain open for sin and uncleanness. It bodes ill when prayer is kept back. To pray, is by faith to take hold of the promises the Lord has made of his good-will to us, and to plead them; to take hold of him, earnestly begging him not to leave us; or soliciting his return. They brought their troubles upon themselves by their own folly. Sinners are blasted, and then carried away, by the wind of their own iniquity; it withers and then ruins them. When they made themselves as an unclean thing, no wonder that God loathed them. Foolish and careless as we are, poor and despised, yet still Thou art our Father. It is the wrath of a Father we are under, who will be reconciled; and the relief our case requires is expected only from him. They refer themselves to God. They do not say, Lord, rebuke us not, for that may be necessary; but, Not in thy displeasure. They state their lamentable condition. See what ruin sin brings upon a people; and an outward profession of holiness will be no defence against it. God's people presume not to tell him what he shall say, but their prayer is, Speak for the comfort and relief of thy people. How few call upon the Lord with their whole hearts, or stir themselves to lay hold upon him! God may delay for a time to answer our prayers, but he will, in the end, answer those who call on his name and hope in his mercy.