English · KJV

Tertullian

Ante-Nicene · to AD 325 · 3,450 passages across 56 books

Commentary

1,421–1,440 of 3,450
Hebrews 12:26

Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.

A third saying let them add, "Let us eat, and drink, and marry, for to-morrow we shall die; " not reflecting that the "woe" (denounced) "on such as are with child, and are giving suck," will fall far more heavily and bitterly in the "universal shaking" of the entire world than it did in the devastation of one fraction of Judaea.
Hebrews 13:2

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

-" Have you seen," says Scripture, "a brother? you have seen your Lord; " -especially "a stranger," lest perhaps he be "an angel.
Hebrews 13:10 · 2 passages

We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle.

That we may not be as far from the ears of God as we are from His precepts, the memory of His precepts paves for our prayers a way unto heaven; of which precepts the chief is, that we go not up unto God's altar before we compose whatever of discord or offence we have contracted with our brethren.
But the one of them, begirt with scarlet, amid cursing and universal spitting, and tearing, and piercing, was cast away by the People outside the city into perdition, marked with manifest tokens of Christ's passion; who, after being begirt with scarlet garment, and subjected to universal spitting, and afflicted with all contumelies, was crucified outside the city. The other, however: offered for sins, and given as food to the priests merely of the temple, gave signal evidences of the second appearance; in so far as, after the expiation of all sins, the priests of the spiritual temple, that is, of the church, were to enjoy a spiritual public distribution (as it were) of the Lord's grace, while all others are fasting from salvation.
Hosea 6:6-7

For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.

But he would not threaten the impenitent if he failed to pardon the penitent. This would be doubtful only if he had not revealed elsewhere the profusion of his mercy. Has he not said, “He who is fallen shall rise, and he who was turned away shall return”? He it is, most assuredly, who “will have mercy rather than sacrifice.” The heavens and the angels who are there rejoice at human repentance. Look at you now, sinner, be of good heart! You see where it is that you are a cause of joy.
Hosea 10:5-6

The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear because of the calves of Bethaven: for the people thereof shall mourn over it, and the priests thereof that rejoiced on it, for the glory thereof, because it is departed from it.

The Lord himself comes to a trial with “the elders and rulers of the people,” as Isaiah predicted. And then he fulfilled all that had been written of his passion. At that time “the heathen raged, and the people imagined vain things; the kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers gathered themselves together against the Lord and against his Christ.” The heathen were Pilate and the Romans; the people were the tribes of Israel; the kings were represented in Herod and the rulers in the chief priests. When, indeed, he was sent to Herod gratuitously by Pilate, the words of Hosea were accomplished, for he had prophesied of Christ, “And they shall carry him bound as a present to the king.”
Hosea 12:4

Yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed: he wept, and made supplication unto him: he found him in Bethel, and there he spake with us;

There were places in Jerusalem where he taught and other places to which he retired. “In daytime he was teaching in the temple.” Just this had been foretold by Hosea: “In my house did they find me, and there did I speak with them.”
Isaiah 1:2

Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.

Our Lord frequently proclaimed God as a Father to us. He even gave us an instruction “that we call no one on earth father, but the Father whom we have in the heavens.” So, in praying [“Our Father”] we are likewise obeying the precept. Those who recognize their Father are blessed! This is the reproach that is brought against Israel, to which the Spirit attests heaven and earth, saying, “I have begotten children, and they have not recognized me.”
Isaiah 1:12 · 2 passages

When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts?

Now this is the spiritual victim which has set aside the earlier sacrifice.… The gospel teaches what God demands. “The hour is coming,” he says, “when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth.” … We are the true worshipers and true priests who, offering our prayer in the spirit, offer sacrifice in the spirit—that is, prayer—as a victim that is appropriate and acceptable to God; this is what he has demanded and what he has foreordained for himself.
As for the burdensome sacrifices and the troublesome scrupulousness of their ceremonies and oblations, no one should blame the Jews, as if God specially required them for himself.… But he should see in those sacrifices a careful provision on God’s part, which showed his wish to bind to his own religion a people who were prone to idolatry and transgression by that kind of services wherein consisted the superstition of that period. He did this in order to call them away from idolatry, while requesting sacrifices to be performed to himself, as if he desired that no sin should be committed in making idols.
Isaiah 1:14 · 2 passages

Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.

God has here expressed an aversion to certain sabbaths. By calling them “your sabbaths” he means that the sabbaths he rejects are humanity’s, and not his. He rejects them because they were celebrated without the fear of God by a people full of sins who love God “with the lip, not the heart.”
Through this arises the question for us, what sabbath God willed us to keep? For the Scriptures point to an eternal sabbath and a temporal sabbath. For Isaiah the prophet says, “My soul hates your sabbaths,” and in another place he says, “My sabbath you have profaned.” From which we discern that the temporal sabbath is human and the eternal sabbath is accounted divine.
Isaiah 1:17

Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.

God offers a brief summary through the prophet Isaiah of the honor that widows enjoy in the sight of God.… The Father defends these two types of people [widows and orphans] through divine mercy in proportion to their being destitute of human aid. Look how the widow’s benefactor is put on a level with the widow herself, whose champion shall “reason with the Lord.”
Isaiah 1:18

Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

In the scarlet color he indicates the blood of the prophets; in the crimson, that of the Lord, as the brighter.
Isaiah 1:19

If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:

This passage means the blessings that await the flesh when in the kingdom of God it shall be renewed, and made like the angels, and waiting to obtain the things “which neither eye has seen nor ear heard, and which have not entered into the heart of man.”
Isaiah 2:4 · 2 passages

And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

Long ago did Isaiah declare that “out of Zion should go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem,” some other law, that is, and another word. In short, he says, “He shall judge among the nations and shall rebuke many people,” meaning not those of the Jewish people only, but also of the nations which are judged by the new law of the gospel and the new word of the apostles, and are among themselves rebuked of their old error as soon as they have believed. And as the result of this, “They beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears (which are a kind of hunting instrument) into pruning hooks.” That is to say, minds that once were fierce and cruel are changed by the gospel and the word of the apostles into good dispositions productive of good fruit.
The gospel will be this “way” of the new law and the new word in Christ, no longer in Moses. “And he shall judge among the nations,” even concerning their error. “And these shall rebuke a large nation,” that of the Jews themselves and their proselytes. “And they shall beat their swords into plowshares”; in other words, they shall change into pursuits of moderation and peace the dispositions of injurious minds, hostile tongues and all kinds of evil and blasphemy.… You learn here that Christ is promised not as powerful in war but pursuing peace.
Isaiah 2:19

And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.

The Creator ought to be known even by the light of nature, for he may be understood from his works and may thereby become the object of a more widely spread knowledge. To him, therefore, does it appertain to punish such as do not know God, for none ought to be ignorant of him. In the apostle’s phrase, “From the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power,” he uses the words of Isaiah, who for that same reason attests the very same Lord as arising “to shake terribly the earth.”
Isaiah 3:1-3

For, behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water,

Consider whether what follows in the prophet has not received its fulfillment: “The Lord of hosts has taken away from Judah and from Jerusalem, among other things, both the prophet and the wise craftsman”; that is, his Holy Spirit, who builds the church, which is indeed the temple, and household and city of God.… And so in this manner the law and the prophets were until John, but the dews of divine grace were withdrawn from the nation.
Isaiah 5:20

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

For, in like manner, they also who oppose martyrdoms, representing salvation to be destruction, transmute sweet into bitter, as well as light into darkness. Thus, by preferring this very wretched life to that most blessed one, they put bitter for sweet, as well as darkness for light.

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