This doctrine, that God has an interest in every detail of practical life and will argue it out with men, led Isaiah to a revelation of God quite peculiar to himself. For the Psalmist it is enough that his soul _come to God, the living God_. It is enough for other prophets to awe the hearts of their generations by revealing _the Holy One_; but Isaiah, with his intensely practical genius, and sorely tried by the stupid inconsistency of his people, bends himself to make them understand that God is at least a _reasonable_ Being. Do not, his constant cry is, and he puts it sometimes in almost as many words--do not act as if there were a Fool on the throne of the universe, which you virtually do when you take these meaningless forms of worship as your only intercourse with Him, and beside them practise your rank iniquities, as if He did not see nor care. We need not here do more than mention the passages in which, sometimes by a word, Isaiah stings and startles self-conscious politicians and sinners beetle-blind in sin, with the sense that God Himself takes an interest in their deeds and has His own working-plans for their life. On the land question in Judah (v. 9): _In mine ears, saith the Lord of hosts_. When the people were paralyzed by calamity, as if it had no meaning or term (xxviii. 29): _This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel and excellent in effectual working_. Again, when they were panic-stricken, and madly sought by foolish ways their own salvation (xxx. 18): _For the Lord is a God of judgement--i.e._, of principle, method, law, with His own way and time for doing things--_blessed are all they that wait for Him_. And again, when politicians were carried away by the cleverness and success of their own schemes (xxxi. 2): _Yet He also is wise_, or clever. It was only a personal application of this Divine attribute when Isaiah heard the word of the Lord give him the minutest directions for his own practice--as, for instance, at what exact point he was to meet Ahaz (vii. 3); or that he was to take a board and write upon it in the vulgar character (viii. 1); or that he was to strip frock and sandals, and walk without them for three years (xx). Where common men feel conscience only as something vague and inarticulate, a flavour, a sting, a foreboding, the obligation of work, the constraint of affection, Isaiah heard the word of the Lord, clear and decisive on matters of policy, and definite even to the details of method and style.