“Come into Mind.” Isa. 65:17 by Joseph Harvey Waggoner

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 20, 1877

“Come into Mind.” Isa. 65:17.

By Joseph Harvey Waggoner

Some time since I saw a question on this text, and I would like to add a word to the answer. The margin, “come upon the heart,” is a very literal rendering of the Hebrew. The original is the same in Jer. 32:35, which easily guides us to the true idea of the text. The Lord said, of their abominations, that he did not command, neither came it into his mind (literally, upon his heart), that they should do them. Authors have indulged in many speculations over this text, as to how it came not into the mind of God, that is, how he did not know that they would do those things. The idea, however, is not that of knowledge or of its absence. To come upon the heart signifies to be an object of desire.

He did not command, neither did he desire, that they should do as they had done. This seems to disprove the doctrine of the predestinarians, as it cannot be that God would determine in his own mind that a people should do that which he did not want them to do.

I think that Isa. 65:17 teaches that the former things shall not come into the mind as objects of desire. Considering how the heart of man is set upon the things of this present world; how fondly he clings to its enjoyments and associations, the promise of a state where this world will not be remembered as a place of enjoyment or as an object of desire, indicates the complete satisfaction that will attend the possession of the world to come.

J. H. WAGGONER.