Isaiah 40 commentary

All human life is a warfare; the Christian life is the most so; but the struggle will not last always. Troubles are removed in love, when sin is pardoned. In the great atonement of the death of Christ, the mercy of God is exercised to the glory of his justice. In Christ, and his sufferings, true penitents receive of the Lord's hand double for all their sins; for the satisfaction Christ made by his death was of infinite value. The prophet had some reference to the return of the Jews from Babylon. But this is a small event, compared with that pointed out by the Holy Ghost in the New Testament, when John the Baptist proclaimed the approach of Christ. When eastern princes marched through desert countries, ways were prepared for them, and hinderances removed. And may the Lord prepare our hearts by the teaching of his word and the convictions of his Spirit, that high and proud thoughts may be brought down, good desires planted, crooked and rugged tempers made straight and softened, and every hinderance removed, that we may be ready for his will on earth, and prepared for his heavenly kingdom. What are all that belongs to fallen man, or all that he does, but as the grass and the flower thereof! And what will all the titles and possessions of a dying sinner avail, when they leave him under condemnation! The word of the Lord can do that for us, which all flesh cannot. The glad tidings of the coming of Christ were to be sent forth to the ends of the earth. Satan is the strong man armed; but our Lord Jesus is stronger; and he shall proceed, and do all that he purposes. Christ is the good Shepherd; he shows tender care for young converts, weak believers, and those of a sorrowful spirit. By his word he requires no more service, and by his providence he inflicts no more trouble, than he will strengthen them for. May we know our Shepherd's voice, and follow him, proving ourselves his sheep.

All created beings shrink to nothing in comparison with the Creator. When the Lord, by his Spirit, made the world, none directed his Spirit, or gave advice what to do, or how to do it. The nations, in comparison of him, are as a drop which remains in the bucket, compared with the vast ocean; or as the small dust in the balance, which does not turn it, compared with all the earth. This magnifies God's love to the world, that, though it is of such small account and value with him, yet, for the redemption of it, he gave his only-begotten Son, John 3:16. The services of the church can make no addition to him. Our souls must have perished for ever, if the only Son of the Father had not given himself for us.

Whatever we esteem or love, fear or hope in, more than God, that creature we make equal with God, though we do not make images or worship them. He that is so poor, that he has scarcely a sacrifice to offer, yet will not be without a god of his own. They spared no cost upon their idols; we grudge what is spent in the service of our God. To prove the greatness of God, the prophet appeals to all ages and nations. Those who are ignorant of this, are willingly ignorant. God has the command of all creatures, and of all created things. The prophet directs us to use our reason as well as our senses; to consider who created the hosts of heaven, and to pay our homage to Him. Not one fails to fulfil his will. And let us not forget, that He spake all the promises, and engaged to perform them.

The people of God are reproved for their unbelief and distrust of God. Let them remember they took the names Jacob and Israel, from one who found God faithful to him in all his straits. And they bore these names as a people in covenant with Him. Many foolish frets, and foolish fears, would vanish before inquiry into the causes. It is bad to have evil thoughts rise in our minds, but worse to turn them into evil words. What they had known, and had heard, was sufficient to silence all these fears and distrusts. Where God had begun the work of grace, he will perfect it. He will help those who, in humble dependence on him, help themselves. As the day, so shall the strength be. In the strength of Divine grace their souls shall ascend above the world. They shall run the way of God's commandments cheerfully. Let us watch against unbelief, pride, and self-confidence. If we go forth in our own strength, we shall faint, and utterly fall; but having our hearts and our hopes in heaven, we shall be carried above all difficulties, and be enabled to lay hold of the prize of our high calling in Christ Jesus.

1. Comfort ye. The Prophet introduces a new subject; for, leaving the people on whom no favorable impression was made either by threatenings or by admonitions, on account of their desperate wickedness, he turns to posterity, in order to declare that the people who shall be humbled under the cross will experience no want of consolation even amidst the severest distresses. And it is probable that he wrote this prophecy when the time of the captivity was at hand, that he might not at his departure from life leave the Church of God overwhehned by very grievous calamities, without the hope of restoration. Though he formerly mingled his predictions with threatenings and terrors for this purpose, yet he appears to have contemplated chiefly the benefit of those who lived at that time. What will afterwards follow will relate to the future Church, the revival of which was effected long after his death; for he will next lay down a perpetual doctrine, which must not be limited to a single period, and especially when he treats of the commencement and progress of the reign of Christ. And this prophecy must be of so much the greater importance to us, because it addresses us in direct terms; for, although it may be a spiritual application of what goes before, so as to be doctrine that is common both to the Jews and to us, yet, as he leaves the Jews of that age, and addresses posterity down to the end of the world, it appears to belong more especially to us.

By this exhortation, therefore, the Lord intended to stir up the hearts of the godly, that they might not faint, amidst heavy calamities. First, he addresses the Jews, who were soon after to be carried into that hard captivity in which they should have neither sacrifices nor prophets, and would have been destitute of all consolation, had not the Lord relieved their miseries by these predictions. Next, he addresses all the godly that should live afterwards, or that shall yet live, to encourage their heart, even when they shall appear to be reduced very low and to be utterly ruined.

That this discourse might have greater weight, and might mere powerfully affect their minds, he represents God as raising up new prophets, whom he enjoins to soothe the sorrows of the people by friendly consolation. The general meaning is, that, when he shall have appeared to have forsaken for a time the wretched captives, the testimony of his grace will again burst forth from the darkness, and that, when gladdening prophecies shall have ceased, their proper time will come round. In order to exhibit more strongly the ground of joy, he makes use of the plural number, Comfort ye; by which he intimates that he will send not one or another, but a vast multitude of prophets; and this he actually accomplished, by which we see more clearly his infinite goodness and mercy.

Will say. First, it ought to be observed that the verb is in the future tense; and those commentators who render it in the present or past tense both change the words and spoil the meaning. Indircetly he points out an intermediate period, during which the people would be heavily afflicted, as if God had been silent. “Comme si Dieu n’en cust rien veu.” “As if God had not at all seen it.” Though even at that time God did not cease to hold out the hope of salvation by some prophets, yet, having for a long period cast them off, when they were wretchedly distressed and almost ruined, the consolation was less abundant, till it was pointed out, as it were with the finger, that they were at liberty to return. On this account the word comfort must be viewed as relating to a present favor; and the repetition of the word not only confirms the certainty of the prediction, but applauds its power and success, as if he had said, that in this message there will be abundant, full, and unceasing cause of joy.

Above all, we must hold by the future tense of this verb, because there is an implied contrast between that melancholy silence of which I have spoken, and the doctrine of consolation which afterwards followed. And with this prediction agrees the complaint of the Church,

“We do not see our signs; there is no longer among us a prophet or any one that knows how long.” (Psalm 74:9.)

We see how she laments that she has been deprived of the best kind of comfort, because no promise is brought forward for soothing her distresses. It is as if the Prophet bad said, “The Lord will not suffer you to be deprived of prophets, to comfort you amidst your severest distresses. At that time he will raise up men by whom he will send to you the message that had been long desired, and at that time also he will show that he takes care of you.”

I consider the future tense, will say, as relating not only to the captivity in Babylon, but to the whole period of deliverance, which includes the reign of Christ. “Qui comprend en soy le regne de Christ jusqu’ a la fin du monde.” “Which includes the reign of Christ till the end of the world.” To the verb will say, we must supply “to the prophets,” whom he will appoint for that purpose; for in vain would they have spoken, if the Lord had not told them, and even put into their mouth what they should make known to others. Thus there is a mutual relation between God and the prophets,” whom he will appoint for that purpose; for in vain would they have spoken, if the Lord had not told them and even put into their mouth what they should make known to others. Thus there is a mutual relation between God and the prophets. In a word, the Lord promises that the hope of salvation will be left, although the ingratitude of men deserves that this voice shall be perpetually silenced and altogether extinguished.

These words, I have said, ought not to be limited to the captivity in Babylon; for they have a very extensive meaning, and include the doctrine of the gospel, in which chiefly lies the power of “comforting.” To the gospel it belongs to comfort those who are distressed and cast down, to quicken those who are slain and actually dead, to cheer the mourners, and, in short, to bring all joy and gladness; and this is also the reason why it is called “the Gospel,” that is, good news, Evangile, c’est a dire Bonne nouvelle. Nor did it begin at the time when Christ appeared in the world, but long before, since the time when God’s favor was clearly revealed, and Daniel might be said to have first raised his banner, that believers might hold themselves in readiness for returning. (Daniel 9:2.) Afterwards, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, Nehemiah, Ezra, and others, down to the coming of Christ, exhorted believers to cherish better and better hopes. Malachi, the last of them that wrote, knowing that there would be few prophets, sends the people to the law of Moses, to learn from it the will of God and its threatenings and promises. (Malachi 4:4.)

Your God. From this passage we learn what we ought chiefly to seek in the prophets, namely, to encourage the hopes of godly persons by exhibiting the sweetness of divine grace, that they may not faint under the weight of afflictions, but may boldly persevere in calling on God. But since it was difficult to be believed, he reminds them of the covenant; as if he had said that it was impossible for God ever to forget what he formerly promised to Abraham. (Genesis 17:7.) Although, therefore, the Jews by their sins had fallen from grace, yet he affirms that he is their God, and that they are his peculiar people, both of which depended on election; but, as even in that nation there were many reprobates, the statement implies that to believers only is this discourse strictly directed; because he silently permits unbelievers, through constant languishment, to be utterly wasted and destroyed. But to believers there is held out an invaluable comfort, that, although for a time they are oppressed by grief and mourning, yet because they hope in God, who is the Father of consolation, they shall know by experience that the promises of grace, like a hidden treasure, are laid up for them, to cheer their hearts at the proper time. This is also a very high commendation of the prophetic office, that it supports believers in adversity, that they may not faint or be discouraged; and, on the other hand, this passage shews that it is a very terrible display of God’s vengeance when there are no faithful teachers, from whose mouth may be heard in the Church of God the consolation that is fitted to raise up those who are cast down, and to strengthen the feeble.

2. Speak ye according to the heart of Jerusalem. Here God commands his servants the prophets, and lays down the message which he wishes them to deliver publicly, when believers shall be called to change their strain from mourning to joy. And yet he does not exhort and encourage them to the cheerful and courageous discharge of their office, so much as he conveys to the minds of believers an assured hope that they may patiently endure the irksomeness of delay, till the prophets appear with this glad and delightful message. To speak to the heart “Selon le coeur;” “according to the heart.” Our author employs both “secundum cor“ and “ad cor.” — Ed. is nothing else than “to speak according to the wish or sentiment of the mind;” for our heart abhors or recoils if any sad intelligence is communicated, but eagerly receives, or rather runs to meet, whatever is agreeable. Now, in consequence of the people having been apparently rejected, nothing could be more agreeable than a reconciliation “La reconciliation avec Dieu.” “The reconciliation with God.” which should blot out all offenses. By a figure of speech in which a part is taken for the whole, Jerusalem, as is well known, denotes the Church.

And cry to her. The word cry means that the promise of this grace will be open and manifest, so as to resound in the ears of all and be understood; for if prophets only muttered or spoke indistinctly, the belief of this consolation would be doubtful or weak, but now that they publish it boldly and with open mouth, all doubts are removed.

That her warfare is accomplished. This is the desirable message, that the Lord determines to put an end to the warfare of his people. I consider כי (ki) to be used for introducing an explanation. Some think that צבאה, (tzebaahh,) which we have translated “her warfare,” simply denotes “time,” as if it had been said, “her time is accomplished.” Que nons avons traduit Guerre, pour “le temps,” comme s’il estoit dit Son temps est accompli. Others think that it expresses the time of visitation, but this is incorrect; for among the Hebrews it literally denotes a time previously appointed and set apart for lawful work or labor. (Numbers 4:23.) But here unquestionably the metaphor is taken from the discharge of soldiers; for it means that the end and issue of their vexations is at hand, and that God does not wish to harass his people continually, but to set a limit to their afflictions. He therefore compares the time of the captivity in Babylon to a righteous warfare, at the end of which the soldiers, having obtained an honorable discharge, will return home to enjoy peace and quietness.

That her iniquity is pardoned. This means that God is so gracious to them that he is unwilling to treat them with the utmost severity. These words, therefore, assign a reason; for, as physicians, in curing diseases, first remove the causes from which diseases arise, so does the Lord deal with us. The scourges by which he chastises us proceed from our sins; and therefore, that he may cease to strike, he must first pardon us; and consequently, he says that there will be an end of punishments, because he no longer imputes sin. Others think that עונה (gnavonahh) means “her misery,” and that it denotes that her misery is ended. This meaning also is highly appropriate, and thus the Prophet will make the same announcement in two ways; for to finish her warfare, and to put an end to her miseries, mean the same thing. Yet we must hold this principle, that God ceases from inflicting punishment when he is appeased, so that pardon and the forgiveness of sins always come first in order, as the cause. But the word נרצה (nirtzah) demands, in my opinion, the former meaning; as if he had said, that God has been appeased in such a manner that, having pardoned and forgiven their sins, he is ready to enter again into a state of favor with his people.

Double for all her sins. This passage is explained in two ways. Some say that the people, having deserved a double punishment, have obtained a double favor; and others, that they have received enough of punishment, because God is unwilling to exact more. The former interpretation, though it contains an excellent and profitable doctrine, does not agree with the text, and must therefore be set aside; and it is evident that the Prophet means nothing else than that God is abundantly satisfied with the miseries which have befallen his Church. I could have wished, therefore, that they who have attacked Jerome and other supporters of this interpretation, had been more moderate; for the natural meaning belongs to this interpretation, and not to the more ingenious one, that the Lord repays double favor for their sins. The general meaning is, that God is unwilling to inflict more severe or more lengthened punishment on his people, because, through his fatherly kindness, he is in some sense displeased with the severity.

Here the word double denotes “large and abundant.” It must not be imagined that the punishments were greater than the offenses, or equal to them; for we ought to abhor the blasphemy of those who accuse God of cruelty, as if he inflicted on men excessively severe punishment; for what punishment could be inflicted that was sufficiently severe even for the smallest offense? This must therefore relate to the mercy of God, who, by setting a limit to the chastisements, testifies that he is unwilling to punish them any more or longer, as if he were abundantly satisfied with what had gone before, though that nation deserved far severer chastisements. God sustains the character of a Father who, while he compassionates his children, is led, not without reluctance, to exercise severity, and thus willingly bends his mind to grant forgiveness.

3. A voice crying in the wilderness. He follows out the subject which he had begun, and declares more explicitly that he will send to the people, though apparently ruined, ministers of consolation. At the same time he anticipates an objection which might have been brought forward. “You do indeed promise consolation, but where are the prophets? For we shall be ‘in a wilderness,’ and whence shall this consolation come to us?” He therefore testifies that “the wilderness” shall not hinder them from enjoying that consolation.

The wilderness is employed to denote metaphorically that desolation which then existed; though I do not deny that the Prophet alludes to the intermediate journey; “Au chemin d’entre Iudee et Babylone.” “To the road between Judea and Babylon.” for the roughness of the wilderness seemed to forbid their return. He promises, therefore, that although every road were shut up, and not a chink were open, the Lord will easily cleave a path through the most impassable tracts for himself and his people.

Prepare the way of Jehovah. Some connect the words “in the wilderness” with this clause, and explain it thus, “Prepare the way of Jehovah in the wilderness.” But the Prophet appears rather to represent a voice which shall gather together those who had wandered and had, as it were, been banished from the habitable globe. “Though you behold nothing but a frightful desert, yet this voice of consolation shall be heard from the mouth of the prophets.” These words relate to the hard bondage which they should undergo in Babylon.

But to whom is that voice addressed? Is it to believers? No, but to Cyrus, to the Persians, and to the Medes, who held that people in captivity. Having been alienated from obedience to God, they are constrained to deliver the people; and therefore they are enjoined to “prepare and pave the way,” that the people of God may be brought back to Judea; as if he had said:, “Make passable what was impassable.” The power and efficacy of this prediction is thus held up for our applause; for when God invests his servants with authority to command men who were cruel and addicted to plunder, and who at that time were the conquerors of Babylon, to “prepare the way” for the return of his people, he means that nothing shall hinder the fulfillment of his promise, because he will employ them all as hired servants. Hence we obtain an excellent consolation, when we see that God makes use of irreligious men for our salvation, and employs all the creatures, when the case demands it, for that end.

A highway for our God. When it, is said that the way shall be prepared not for the Jews, but for God himself, we have here a remarkable proof of his love towards us; for he applies to himself what related to the salvation of his chosen people. The Lord had nothing to do with walking, and had no need of a road; but he shews that we are so closely united to him that what is done on our account he reckons to be done to himself. This mode of expression is frequently employed elsewhere, as when it is said that God “went forth into battle with his anointed,” (Habakkuk 3:13,) and that “he rode through the midst of Egypt,” (Exodus 11:4,) and that he lifted up his standard and led his people through the wilderness. (Isaiah 63:13.)

This passage is quoted by the Evangelists, (Matthew 3:3; Mark 1:3; Luke 3:4,) and applied to John the Baptist, as if these things had been foretold concerning him, and not unjustly; for he held the highest rank among the messengers and heralds of our redemption, of which the deliverance from Babylon was only a type. And, indeed, at the time when the Church arose out of her wretched and miserable condition, her mean appearance bore a stronger resemblance than the Babylonish captivity to a “wilderness;” but God wished that they should see plainly, in the wilderness in which John taught, the image and likeness of that miserably ruinous condition by which the whole beauty of the Church was injured and almost destroyed. What is here described metaphorically by the Prophet was at that time actually fulfilled; for at an exceedingly disordered and ruinous crisis John lifted up the banner of joy. True, indeed, the same voice had been previously uttered by Daniel, Zechariah, and others; but the nearer the redemption approached, the more impressively could it be proclaimed by John, who also pointed out Christ with the finger. (John 1:29.) But because, in the midst of a nation which was ignorant and almost sunk in stupidity, there were few that sincerely grieved for their ruinous condition, John sought a wilderness, that the very sight of the place might arouse careless persons to hope and desire the promised deliverance. As to his denying that he was a Prophet, (John 1:21,) this depends on the end of his calling and the substance of his doctrine; for he was not sent to discharge apart any continued office, but, as a herald, to gain an audience for Christ his Master and Lord. What is here said about removing obstructions, he applies skilfully to individuals, on this ground, that the depravity of our nature, the windings of a crooked mind, and obstinacy of heart, shut up the way of the Lord, and hinder them from preparing, by true self-denial, to yield obedience.

4. Every valley shall be exalted. He confirms and asserts the preceding statement; for he shews that no difficulties can prevent the Lord from delivering and restoring his Church whenever he shall think fit. These words might with propriety be rendered in the imperative mood, “Let every valley be exalted,” “Grotius supposes the command at the beginning of the chapter to be still continued, (‘Let every valley, etc.,) and the latest German writers give the same construction of this verse, although they make a new command begin in the one preceding. The form of the following verb והיה, (vehayah,) though not incompatible with this explanation, rather favors the strict interpretation of the future, which is, of course, on general principles to be preferred.” — Alexander. so as to be placed in immediate connection with the command which God gives by his prophets to prepare and level the way for himself; but it makes hardly any difference in the meaning. Let us be satisfied with understanding the Prophet’s design, “that, although many and formidable difficulties are started to hinder the salvation of the Church, still the hand of God will be victorious and will prevail.”

And every mountain and hill shall be laid low. It ought to be observed that many obstructions always arise whenever God makes provision for our deliverance, or wishes to aid the afflicted; and although his glory is more fully displayed by these obstructions, yet we suffer no loss; for we behold more clearly his wonderful power when no strength, or efforts, or contrivances of men can prevent him from gaining his object. He conducts his people through “mountains” and steep places in such a manner as if the road were perfectly level; and by the words mountains and hills, the Prophet undoubtedly intends to denote metaphorically obstructions of every kind; for Satan attempts in every way to hinder our salvation. When we come, therefore, to spiritual redemption, these words undoubtedly include both internal and external obstacles, — lusts and wicked desires, ambition, foolish confidence, and impatience, which retard us wonderfully, but the Lord will break them all down; for when he stretches out his hand, nothing can restrain or drive him back.

5. And the glory of Jehovah shall be revealed. He means that this work of redemption will be splendid, so that the Lord will shew that he is the Author of it, and will illustriously display his majesty and power. This, indeed, is very openly manifested in all places and in all events, but he promises that he will do this especially in protecting and delivering his Church, and not without good reason; for the deliverance of the Church, from its commencement down to the coming of Christ, might be called a renewal of the world. “Un renonvellement incroyable, ou seconde creation du monde.” “An incredible renewal or second creation of the world.” And because the power of God, which he had formerly been accustomed to display, was almost extinguished, so that scarcely the slightest traces were discernible, as it is said in the Psalm, “We do not see our signs,” (Psalm 74:9;) this was a very seasonable warning, that a new and striking demonstration is promised, by which they may perceive that God has in his power various methods of giving relief, even when he conceals them for a time.

And all flesh shall see. He now heightens the miracle by an additional circumstance, that it will be known not only in Judea, but in foreign and distant countries; for by these words “All flesh shall see,” he means that there will be no nations that do not see clearly that the return of the people is a heavenly work, and that God did not speak in vain by the Prophet. Thus he censures the unbelief of men, who never rely on the promises of God, and who treat as fables whatever is said by the prophets, till by beholding the actual fact they are constrained to yield.

That the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken. Here we are taught what is the true method of correcting our unbelief; that is, to be employed in meditating on the promises of God, and to have our faith strengthened by all the proofs of them which he exhibits. Thus it is proper to join doctrine with experience; for since the sight of God’s works would produce little impression on us, he first enlightens us by the torch of his word, and next seals the truth of it by the actual accomplishment.

6. The voice said, Cry. He now describes a different “voice” from that of which he formerly spoke; for hitherto he had spoken about the “voice” of the prophets, but now he means the “voice” of God himself commanding the prophets to cry. Although the voice of the prophets is also the voice of God, whose instruments they are, (for they do not speak of themselves,) (2 Peter 1:20, 21,) yet this distinction is necessary, that we may know when the Lord commands, and when the prophets and ministers execute his commandments. There is also a beautiful comparison between the two “voices,” that we may receive with as much reverence what the prophets utter as if God himself thundered from heaven; for they speak only by his mouth, and repeat as ambassadors what he has commissioned them to declare. Besides, this preface gives notice that the Prophet is about to speak of something highly important; for, although he everywhere testifies that he faithfully delivers from hand to hand what he has received from God, yet, in order to obtain closer attention, he states that the voice of God has expressly enjoined the mode of speaking which he shall employ. Such is also the import of the word Cry, as if he had said that he must proclaim this commandment in a clear and loud voice, that it may make the deeper impression.

And I said, What shall I cry? The addition of this question has great weight; for the Prophet means that he does not break forth at random, and boast of what he appeared to have heard in a confused manner; but that he received clear and undoubted instruction, after having waited for it with composure. Besides, from the fact itself we may learn that there is nothing here that is superfluous, because two chief points of heavenly doctrine were to be briefly handled; that, although man is smoke and vanity, and all his excellence is deceitful and fading, yet believers have the best reason for glorying, because they seek salvation not from themselves; and that, although they are strangers on the earth, (Hebrews 11:13,) yet they possess heavenly happiness, because God unites himself to them by his word; for by renouncing ourselves we are led to desire the grace of God. The Prophet knew, indeed, what he ought to say; but by this question he intended to make a stronger impression on their minds, in order to shew that he and all the other servants of God are constrained by necessity to utter this sentiment, and that they cannot begin to teach in any other manner, though they should put a hundred questions and inquiries; as indeed they will gain nothing by choosing to adopt any other method.

As to the word Cry, I have no objection to view it as denoting both boldness and clearness; because prophets ought not to mutter in an obscure manner, but to pronounce their message with a distinct voice, and to utter boldly and with open mouth whatever they have been commanded to declare. Let every one, therefore, who is called to this office constantly remember and believe, that he ought to meet difficulties of every sort with unshaken boldness, such as was always manifested both by prophets and by apostles.

“Wo to me,” says Paul, “if I do not preach the gospel; for necessity is laid on me.” (1 Corinthians 9:16.)

All flesh is grass. First, it ought to be observed, that he does not speak merely of the frailty of human life, but extends the discourse farther, so as to reduce to nothing all the excellence which men think that they possess. David indeed compares this life to grass, (Psalm 103:15,) because it is fading and transitory; but the context shews that the Prophet does not speak only of the outward man, but includes the gifts of the mind, of which men are exceedingly proud, such as prudence, courage, acuteness, judgment, skill in the transactions of business, in which they think that they excel other animals; and this is more fully expressed by that which immediately follows —

All the grace of it. Some translate חסדו (chasdo) “his glory;” others, “his kindness;” but I have preferred the word “grace,” by which I mean everything that procures honor and esteem to men. Yet a passive signification may also be admitted; as if the Prophet had said, that all that is excellent and worthy of applause among men is the absolute kindness of God. Thus David calls God “the God of his kindness,” (Psalm 59:10, 17,) because he acknowledges him to be the author of all blessings, and ascribes it to his grace that he has obtained them so largely and abundantly. It is indeed certain that חסד (chesed) here denotes all that is naturally most highly valued among men, and that the Prophet condemns it for vanity, because there is an implied contrast between the ordinary nature of mankind and the grace of regeneration.

Some commentators refer this to the Assyrians, as if the Prophet, by extenuating their power and wealth, and industry and exertions, or rather by treating these as they had no existence, freed the minds of the Jews from terror. They bring out the meaning in this manner, “If you are terrified at the strength of men, remember that they are flesh, which quickly gives way through its own weakness. But their error is soon afterwards refuted by the context, in which the Prophet expressly applies it to the Jews themselves. We ought carefully to observe that man, with his faculties, on account of which he is accustomed to value himself so highly, is wholly compared to a flower. All men are fully convinced of the frailty of human life, and on this subject heathen writers have argued at great length; but it is far more difficult to root out the confidence which men entertain through a false opinion of their wisdom; for, if they imagine that they have either knowledge or industry beyond others, they think that they have a right to glory in them. But he shews that in man there is nothing so excellent as not to fade quickly and perish.

As the flower of the field. The Prophet seems, as if in mockery, to add a sort of correction; for a flower is something more than grass. It is, therefore, an acknowledgment, that, although men have some shining qualities, like flowers in the fields, yet the beauty and lustre quickly vanish and pass away, so that it is useless for them to flatter or applaud themselves on account of this idle and deceitful splendor.

7. The grass is withered. This might be understood to relate to the beauty of the fields, which is spoiled by a single gust of wind, as it is said, (Psalm 103:16,) “As soon as the wind passeth over it, it is gone;” for we know that the wind is called “the Spirit of God” in other passages. But I am more inclined to think that the metaphor is adapted to the present subject; for otherwise the application of it would be somewhat obscure. The Prophet therefore explains what object he has in view, by saying that men, with all their glory, are nothing else than grass; theft is, because the Spirit of God will quickly carry them away by a single breath.

Because the Spirit of Jehovah hath blown upon it. The meaning may be thus explained, “However illustrious are the gifts with which men are endowed, yet as soon as the Spirit of God shall blow upon them, they shall fed that they are nothing.” For the false confidence with which they intoxicate themselves springs from this source, that they do not appear before God, but, in order to indulge freely in flattering themselves, creep into places of concealment. That they may no longer deceive themselves by a foolish delight in falsehood, the Prophet drags them into the presence of God, and admits that apparently they flourish, when they have been withdrawn from God; but as soon as the Lord has breathed upon them, all their strength and beauty perish and decay.

But it may be thought that he assigns to “the Spirit of God” an office which is greatly at variance with his nature; for it belongs to him “to renew by his power the face of the earth.” (Psalm 104:30.) On the other hand, if the Lord withdraw his Spirit, all is reduced to nothing. Here Isaiah asserts what is exceedingly different, and appears to contradict David. But there is no absurdity in saying that all things are renewed by the power of the Spirit, and again, that what formerly appeared to be something is reduced to nothing; for we are nothing but in God, and, in order that we may begin to be something in him, we must first be convinced, and made thoroughly to know, that we are vanity. Therefore does the Lord breathe upon us, that we may know that of ourselves we are nothing.

Surely the people is grass. The Prophet added this, that all might know that he was not speaking of foreigners, but of that people which gloried in the name of God; for the Jews might have thought that they were more excellent, and held a higher rank than other men, and that on this account they ought to be exempted from the common lot. He therefore addresses theta expressly and by name, that they may not claim anything for themselves above others; as if he had said, that they would act wisely if, through a conviction of their poverty, they should cast away all confidence in themselves. In a word, the Prophet, after having mentioned consolation, shews in what way men must be prepared to receive it; for they are not capable of it till they have formerly been reduced to nothing. Our hardness must therefore be softened, our haughtiness must be east down and laid low, our boasting must be put to shame, and our hearts must be subdued and humbled, if we wish to receive with any advantage the consolations which the prophets bring to us by the command of God.

8. The grass withereth. This repetition is again added for the purpose of bringing to nought the glory of the flesh, but at the same time contains within itself a highly valuable consolation, that God, when he has cast down his people, immediately raises up and restores them. The context therefore runs thus: “The grass indeed withereth and perisheth, but the word of the Lord endureth for ever.” After having learned how empty and destitute we are of all blessings, how transitory and fading is the glory of the flesh, the only consolation left for us, that we may be raised up by the word of the Lord, as by an outstretched hand, is, that we are frail and fading, but that the word of the Lord is durable and eternal, and, in a word, that the life which we need is offered to us from another quarter.

But the word of our God shall stand for ever. This passage comprehends the whole Gospel in few words; for it consists of an acknowledgment of our misery, poverty, and emptiness, that, being sincerely humbled, we may fly to God, by whom alone we shall be perfectly restored. Let not men therefore faint or be discouraged by the knowledge of their nakedness and emptiness; for the eternal word is exhibited to them by which they may be abundantly supported and upheld. We are likewise taught that we ought not to seek consolation from any other source than from eternity, which ought not to be sought anywhere else than in God; since nothing that is firm or durable will be found on the earth. Nothing is more foolish than to rest satisfied with the present state, which we see to be fleeting; and every man is mistaken who hopes to be able to obtain perfect happiness till he has ascended to God, whom the Scripture calls eternal, in order that we may know that life flows to us from him; and indeed he adopts us to be his children on this condition, to make us partakers of his immortality.

But this would be of no avail, if the manner of seeking him were not pointed out; and therefore he exhibits the word, from which we must not in any respect turn aside; for if we make the smallest departure from it, we shall be involved in strange labyrinths, and shall find no way of extricating ourselves. Now, the word is called eternal, not merely in itself, but in us; and this ought to be particularly observed, because otherwise we could obtain no consolation. And thus Peter, a faithful expounder of this passage, applies it to us, when he says that “we are regenerated by this incorruptible seed, that is,” says he, “by the word which is preached.” (1 Peter 1:23, 25.) Hence we infer, what I mentioned a little before, that life is prepared for the dead who shall come thirsting to the fountain that is exhibited to them; for the power which is hid in God is revealed to us by the word.

9. Ascend on the high mountain. He proceeds with the same subject; for the Lord, having formerly promised that he would give prophets who should soothe the grief and fear of the people by promises, now commands that this consolation shall be more widely spread; because it is his pleasure to diffuse his grace throughout the whole of Judea.

Lift up thy voice aloud, O Jerusalem. Formerly he had given to Jerusalem, and Zion the hope of this joyful message; now he commands that the same voice shall be spread and shall be heard through other cities, and, for this reason, gives orders that the loud voice shall be lifted up, and proclaimed from a lofty place. Although by the words “Zion” and “Jerusalem” he means the same thing, yet the repetition is emphatic; for he shews that one city excels all other cities, for no other reason than because God hath chosen it to be his sanctuary.

That bringest tidings. He gives to the city this appellation, because there the priests and Levites were instructed according to the injunctions of the Law, that they might be the teachers of the whole people, and by their labors might spread the doctrine of salvation. (Malachi 2:7.) Yet we ought carefully to observe this commendation which God bestows on his Church, that it may not be without a clear mark of distinction; for an assembly in which the preaching of heavenly doctrine is not heard does not deserve to be reckoned a Church. In this sense also, Paul calls it (1 Timothy 3:15) “the pillar and foundation of the truth;” for although God might have governed us by himself, and without the agency of men, yet he has assigned this office to his Church, and has committed to it the invaluable treasure of his Word. For the same reason it will be called in another passage, “the mother of all believers.” (Isaiah 54:1; Galatians 4:26.) Hence it follows that nothing is more absurd and wicked than for dumb idols to boast of the name of the Church, as is done in Popery.

We are likewise taught, that the Church has not been instructed by God, in order that she may keep her knowledge hidden within herself, but that she may publish what she has learned. Besides, he commands that grace shall be freely and boldly proclaimed, that prophets and teachers may not speak with timidity, as if it were a doubtful matter, but may shew that they are fully convinced of the certainty of those things which they promise, because they know well that “God, who cannot lie,” (Titus 1:2,) is the Author of them. He enjoins the witnesses of his grace to proceed from Zion, that they may fill with joy the whole of Judea.

Behold your God! This expression includes the sum of our happiness, which consists solely in the presence of God. It brings along with it an abundance of all blessings; and if we are destitute of it, we must be utterly miserable and wretched; and although blessings of every kind are richly enjoyed by us, yet if we are estranged from God, everything must tend to our destruction. From this circumstance it ought also to be remarked, that nothing is more opposite to faith than to estimate by the present appearances of things what God declares by his prophets, who at that time must have been struck dumb, had they not raised their views above the world, and thus, through the power of unshaken boldness and perseverance, dared to draw others along with them, that they might cherish good hopes when matters were at the worst. And indeed when wicked men and wickedness prevail, the greater the terror that is spread all around, and the greater the seeming wretchedness of the Church, the more ought we to extol the grace of God, and to point out his presence to believers. “A ceux qui la veulent contempler en foy.” “To those who wish to behold it by faith.”

10. Behold, the Lord Jehovah. He adorns this short sentence by many words, because some explanation was needed; and he again uses the word Behold for the sake of certainty, in order to impart greater confidence to the hearts of good men. Thus he shews more clearly how great advantage they derive from the presence of God. And first, he says, that he will come with strength, and that strength not unemployed, but accompanied by such an effect as we shall perceive.

And his arm shall be powerful to him “With strong (hand), or, against the strong.” — Eng. Ver. “Against the strong one, that is, against (foreign) nations to punish them.” — Jarchi. Vitringa gives the same version, though with a different explanation, and quotes the authorities of Junius and Piscator, while he states that all the ancient interpreters, among whom he enumerates the Septuagint, Jerome, and the Chaldee Paraphrast, render the phrase with strength. — Ed. לו (lo), which we have translated to him, is translated by others of himself; or, perhaps, it will be thought preferable to translate it, “He is powerful, or reigns for himself.” The meaning is, that God is sufficient for himself, and does not need the assistance of any one.

Behold, his reward is with him, and his work before his face. By the repetition of the words “reward” and “work,” he states more clearly what has been already expressed; for it is very customary with Hebrew writers to express the same thing in two different ways. “Reward” does not here denote what is due to merits, but the justice of God, by which he testifies that he is a rewarder to all who truly and sincerely call upon him. (Hebrews 11:6.) That this is the signification of the word שכר (sachar) is known to all who are moderately acquainted with the Hebrew language. The meaning may be thus summed up: “God will not come to be beheld by us as unemployed, but to display his power, and to make us feel it;” and thus, instead of the word “work,” the word “effect” would not be inapplicable. Many persons attempt an ingenious exposition of these words, and enter into childish discussion about the words “work” and “reward,” as if the “work” were a merit on which a “reward” is bestowed. But nothing was farther from the view of the Prophet; for he repeats the same thing, as we have already said, and declares the result of the coming of the Lord, from which believers will derive the highest advantage.

11. As a shepherd. In this verse he declares what is the nature of that work of the Lord; for since he works in various and, indeed, in innumerable ways, the hearer might have been kept in suspense as to the work which God intended to accomplish; and thus the general doctrine would have been less efficacious in exciting hope. Though he does not describe every part, yet he states in a few words that God has determined to protect and guard his Church. On this account he compares him to “a shepherd;” and under this designation he expresses his infinite love towards us, when he does not refuse to stoop so low as to perform towards us the office of “a shepherd.” In other passages, and even a little before, (Isaiah 34:2, etc.,) he described himself as armed with terrible power for the defense of his people, and a little after this he repeats the same statement; but here he ascribes to him a more amiable character, that believers may sweetly repose under his protection.

He will feed his flock. Now, although by the word “flock” he describes an elect people, whom he had undertaken to govern, yet we are reminded that God will be a shepherd to none but to those who, in modesty and gentleness, shall imitate the sheep and lambs. For this reason we ought to observe the character of the flock; for he does not choose to feed savage beasts, but lambs. We must therefore lay aside our fierceness, and permit ourselves to be tamed, if we wish to be gathered into the fold of which God promises that he will be the guardian.

He will carry them in his bosom. These words describe God’s wonderful condescension; for not only is he actuated by a general feeling of regard to his whole flock, but, in proportion to the weakness of any one sheep, he shews his carefulness in watching, his gentleness in handling, and his patience in leading it. Here he leaves out nothing that belongs to the office of a good shepherd; for the shepherd ought to observe every sheep, so as to treat it according to its capacity; and especially they ought to be supported, if they are exceedingly weak. In a word, God will be mild, kind, gentle, and compassionate, so that he will not drive the weak harder than they are able to bear.

12. Who hath measured? After having spoken of God’s friendly care in defending his people, he now proclaims his power, and bestows upon it all possible commendations, which, however, would produce less impression upon us, if we did not attend to the Prophet’s design. At first sight, ignorant readers would think that the Prophet crowds together unfinished sentences, which would be absurd. But if we look at his object, he adorns the power of God by a seasonable and elegant discourse, which is a true support of our faith, that we may not hesitate to believe that he will do what he has promised. Not without reason does Paul say that Abraham did not hesitate, because he believed that God who had promised was able to perform what he had said. (Romans 4:20, 21.) In the same sense also he testifies of himself in another passage,

“I know whom I have believed; God is able to keep what I have committed to him.” (2 Timothy 1:12.)

Such is also the import of those words of Christ,

“My Father who gave you to me is greater than all.” (John 10:29.)

Since, therefore, we ought continually to strive against distrust, and since Satan attacks us by various contrivances, it is of great importance that the promises of God should be believed by us, to give to his power the praise which it deserves. Now, because the restoration of the people was beyond belief, it was necessary that godly minds should he raised above the world, that they might not view the grace of God as limited to human means.

We see that the Prophet does not merely teach that God is the Creator of heaven and earth, but applies to the present subject all that he relates concerning God’s infinite power; and in like manner it is fitted for our guidance. When any adversity befalls us, our salvation is hidden, and, as if a cloud had come between, the power of God is concealed; we are held in astonishment, as if the Lord had forsaken and overlooked us. Let us not, therefore, think that the Prophet speaks of some ordinary matter; for if this conviction of the power of God were deeply seated in our hearts, we would not be so much alarmed, and would not be disturbed by any calamity whatever. On this power, as we have said, Abraham leaned, that he might cordially embrace what was otherwise incredible; and, accordingly, Paul affirms (Romans 4:18) that “he hoped against hope;” for he believed that God was able to do what he had said, and did not waver or stagger in his mind. We are thus taught to raise our eyes above this world, that we may not judge by outward appearances, but may believe that what God hath spoken will come to pass; because all things are at his disposal.

While this conviction is necessary for all, I have said that the Jews had very great need of it; for they were pressed hard by very powerful enemies, they had no means of escape and no hope of freedom, and nothing was to be seen on every hand but a large and frightful wilderness. In vain, therefore, would consolation have been offered to them, had they not, at the suggestion of the Prophet, raised their minds to heaven, and, disregarding the appearances of things, fixed their whole heart on the power of God.

When he names “measures,” which are used by men in very small matters, he accommodates himself to our ignorance; for thus does the Lord often prattle with us, and borrow comparisons from matters that are familiar to us, when he speaks of his majesty; that our ignorant and limited minds may better understand his greatness and excellence. Away, then, with all gross conceptions of God; for his greatness far exceeds all creatures, so that heaven, and earth, and sea, and all that they contain, however vast may be their extent, yet in comparison of him are nothing.

13. Who instructed the Spirit of Jehovah? What the Prophet had formerly taught concerning the Lord’s goodness and power he now adds concerning his wisdom. And we ought to observe the connection; for, us carnal sense wickedly limits the power of God to human means, so it improperly subjects his inscrutable counsel to human reasonings. Till God be exalted above all creatures, many difficulties present themselves to interrupt the course of his works; and, therefore, if we form a judgment according to our own opinion, various scruples will immediately arise. Thus, whenever we do not see how God will do this or that, we doubt if it will take place; because what surpasses our reason appears to be impossible. Consequently, as we ought to contrast, the power of God with our weakness, so our insolence ought to be repressed by his incomparable, wisdom.

By inquiring, who guided or directed the Spirit of God, he means that God had no need of a teacher, to go before and inform him about things unknown. Spirit here denotes reason, judgment, or understanding; for he borrows a comparison from the nature of men, that he may more fully accommodate himself to them; and I do not think that this ought to be understood as denoting the essential Spirit of God.

14. From whom took he counsel? The Prophet expresses the same thing in many ways; that we may know that nothing is more foolish than man, “Que l’homme est plus beste que los bestes mesmes.” “That man is more a beast than the beasts themselves.” when he ventures to lift himself up into heaven, to examine or judge by his own ability the works of God. In these words, therefore, Isaiah intended to repress more and more the insolence and rashness of men. Paul quotes this proof for the same purpose, to deter us from judging of the unsearchable counsel of God; for God does not wish us to inquire concerning his wisdom but in a sober and becoming manner. (Romans 11:34.) There is one difference, that Paul affirms that the spiritual mystery of the gospel cannot be fathomed by the human understanding, while the Prophet pronounces a commendation, in general terms, on the providence of God. But on both points we ought to learn humility, and to bring all our senses captive to obedience. All the reason or understanding that we have is mere darkness, till we have been enlightened by Christ.

15. Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket. If we wish to understand the Prophet’s meaning, and to read these words with advantage, we must (as I remarked a little before) understand his design. He does not celebrate the greatness of God in a detached manner, but extols it with the utmost. possible adaptation to the present subject, that Israelites may know that this shield alone is sufficient to protect them, and that they will have no reason to dread the efforts, or rage, or violence of the world, if God be reconciled to them, and that they may thus learn to betake themselves to God’s protection; for if they were not fully convinced of this, there would arise at every moment various causes of despair. Isaiah thus continues the subject, when he says that all nations and peoples are nothing when compared with God; for, by simply breathing on them, he will scatter like small dust all the inhabitants of the earth. In consequence of our being excessively prone and foolishly ingenious in devising reasons of distrust, we imagine that everything that Satan does for the purpose of hindering our salvation blocks up the path of God. For the purpose of correcting this error, the Prophet declares that all the creatures are nothing before God, and that all the nations resemble small and inconsiderable drops of water. Hence we infer that nothing can be more contrary to reason than to exalt creatures for the sake of diminishing the power of God, which is high above all, and ought to be so acknowledged.

16. And Lebanon would not be sufficient. That is, “If we must sacrifice to God according to what he deserves, neither the whole of Lebanon, nor the beasts that graze upon it, would be sufficient for a sacrifice.” By various forms of expression he dwells largely on this power of God, that men, being’ convinced of it, may care nothing about creatures and all their might. Yet the Prophet appears to speak expressly of the worship of God, in order to lead readers to cherish deeper reverence for him; as if he had said, “Will you dare to measure by your own judgment the power of God, whom you will not be prepared, for worshipping aright, even though you should amass all the beasts and all the wood that are on Lebanon?” Hence some infer that no man can entitle himself to the favor of God by sacrifices. This, indeed, is true; but we ought, as has been already said, to consider the design of the Prophet, who, for the purpose of encouraging the Jews to cherish stronger confidence, shews that in comparison of God all things are nothing.

17. All nations. He repeats what he had said, that it is in the power and at the disposal of God to destroy “all nations,” whenever he shall think proper; and that, even while they remain in their present condition, they are reckoned as nothing before him. But it may be thought absurd for him to say, that “the nations are nothing,” since God created them, that they might be something. I reply, this is said by comparison; for the depravity of the human mind is such that it obscures the divine majesty, and places above it those things which ought to have been subject to God; and, therefore, when we come to that contest, we may boldly declare that everything that is compared with God is worthless. Nor does Isaiah speak merely about the nature of men, such as it was created by God; but his aim is to abase and restrain their pride, when they venture to exalt themselves against God. We know that we cannot subsist but in God, in whom alone, as Paul declares, “we live, and move, and are.” (Acts 17:28.) Nothing is more vain than man; and, as David says,

“If he be laid in the balance with vanity, he will be found to be even lighter than vanity.” (Psalm 62:9.)

In the same manner does Isaiah affirm that “the nations” are not only “nothing,” but “less than nothing.” in order to exhibit more fully their feebleness and vanity. The ambiguous use of the word “vanity,” and of the corresponding term in the Latin language, “vanitas,” is avoided by our author’s version; “and in comparison of him they are reckoned less than nothing, and what is not.” — Ed.

18. To whom then have ye likened God? The Jews were in great danger from another temptation; for there was reason to believe that the Assyrians and Babylonians would not have obtained so many victories without their assistance; and hence they might naturally conclude, “Of what avail is it to us to have a peculiar manner of worshipping God which differs from other nations; for our enemies fight under the favor and protection of heaven, while we are not cheered by any assistance from the God whom we worship?” Neither can there be any doubt, that the captives were taunted by unbelievers, as is evident from other passages. (Psalm 137:3; Lamentations 2:15.) That true religion may not be ruined among the Jews on account of the calamity which they had sustained, God rises up, and proclaims that a grievous injury is done to him, if believers, discouraged by adversity, turn aside to the idols and superstitions of the Gentiles. Thus he confirms them in the faith of the promises, that they may not sink under the weight of the punishments which they endure.

The Prophet, as we formerly suggested, does not address merely the men of his own age, but posterity, who would have a still severer contest with the mockeries of the nations whose captives they were, and likewise with bad examples and customs; for when, in consequence of being mingled with heathen nations, they daily beheld many corruptions of piety, it was more difficult for them steadily to persevere. That they might not entertain any foolish notion that high prosperity attended the worshippers of false gods, the Prophet meets this error, and reminds them that God, whom they and their fathers worshipped, ought not to be compared with the gods of the Gentiles; for these were made by men, and were composed of gold or silver, wood or stone; but God created all things; and therefore that the highest injury is done to God, not only by comparing his majesty with things of no value, but even by not, placing him far above all the angels and everything that is reckoned divine.

When Paul employs this passage (Acts 17:29) as a proof against idolaters, or at least quotes the words of the Prophet, he does not wrest them from their true meaning. He infers, indeed, from them that to frame any image of God is exceedingly wicked, while the Prophet, in guarding the Jews against distrust, at the same time condemns the superstitions of the Gentiles, and declares that it is inconsistent with the nature of God to be represented by painting or by any kind of likeness. This shews clearly that Paul’s doctrine fully agrees with it; for the Prophet, after having shewn that the power of God is infinite, since he holds all things in his fist, at length concludes, “To whom then will ye liken me? for no image that is formed will have any likeness or resemblance to me.”

Or, what resemblance will you appoint to him? This is a useful doctrine, and worthy of observation; for were there nothing more than this single passage, it would be perfectly sufficient for refuting the inventions by which Papists deceive themselves, when they think that they have a right to represent God by outward figures. The Prophet declares that it is impossible to frame out of dead matter an image which shall have any resemblance to the glory of God. He openly rejects idols, and does not even speak of the worship of them, but affirms that to manufacture and set them up before God is wicked and abominable. The Scripture is full of such proofs. Moses warned a people prone to this vice,

“Thou sawest no image or shape in the mountain, thou only heardest a voice. See then and beware that thou be not led astray so as to frame for thyself any image.” (Deuteronomy 4:12, 15.)

In order to know God, therefore, we must not frame a likeness of him according to our own fancy, but we must betake ourselves to the Word, in which his lively image is exhibited to us. Satisfied with that communication, let us not attempt anything else of our own. Other ways and methods, such as idols and images, teach us vanity and falsehood, and not truth, as Jeremiah beautifully says, “The wood is the instruction of vanities,” (Jeremiah 10:8,) and Habakkuk, “His graven image is falsehood.” (Habakkuk 2:18.) When the Lord sometimes compares himself to a lion, a bear, a man, or other objects, this has nothing to do with images, as the Papists imagine, but by those metaphors either the kindness and mercy of God, or his wroth and displeasure, and other things of the same nature, are expressed; for God cannot reveal himself to us in any other way than by a comparison with things which we know. In short, if it were lawful to frame or set up an image of God, that would be a point of resemblance to the gods of the Gentiles, and this declaration of the Prophet could not be maintained.

19. The carver prepares a graven image. As public opinion has great force, and everything that pleases the multitude passes for a law, the Prophet fortifies believers against this error. These words therefore convey an anticipation, that the Jews may not be terrified when they see the Gentiles laboring with all their might to make idols, for in this way they deceive and ensnare each other. But he attacks the madness of the whole world, “Il s’esleve d’une saincte colere alencontre de la folie desesperee des hommes.” “He rises in holy wrath against the desperate folly of men.” on this ground, that all are impelled by such outrageous zeal to the practice of superstition, and every man is his own instructor in the formation of idols.

20. The poor chooseth for his offering wood that will not rot. He concludes that no class of men is free from that crime, that the rich and poor alike are guilty and condemned; for the rich make their gods of gold or silver, and the poor of wood which they had selected. Hence he shews that all men are carried away by strange madness, and that even though they have not the means, still they desire to have something excellent for the worship of their gods. Men wish to enjoy the presence of God, and this is the beginning and source of idolatry; for God is not present with us by an idol, but by his word and by the power of his Spirit; and although he holds out to us in the sacraments an image both of his grace and of spiritual blessings, yet this is done with no other intention than to lead us upwards to himself. Yet the Prophet censures the folly of men, who are so blind as to labor with excessive industry and ingenuity in highly adorning their idols.

21. Do ye not know? After having ridiculed the stupidity and madness of the Gentiles, the Prophet turns to the Jews; for we are all prone to superstition, and thus we easily fall into it when any example is placed before our eyes. In consequence of mixing with the Babylonians during their captivity, the Jews were constrained to behold daily the basest examples of idolatry, and might be led away to wicked imitation. Isaiah therefore anticipates this at an early period, and warns them not to be carried away by the sight of such things.

He asks, “Have they not been taught, and have they not learned who is God?” The greater part of commentators think that all the questions here put are a repetition of the same truth, namely, that the creation of the world shews clearly that nothing can be more inconsistent than to seek God in wood and stone, silver and gold. But we may infer from the context that there are two clauses. Had he proceeded in his expostulation with the Gentiles, he would have brought forward no other witnesses than heaven and earth. But because he addresses the Jews who had been plainly taught by the Law, he brings forward direct arguments to refute them, drawn both from the order of nature and from the voice of God. And, first, he puts the question in general terms, “Do ye not know?” Next, he adds two methods by which they ought to have distinguished between the true God and the false gods. The former is drawn from the hearing of the Word, and therefore he expressly says, “Hath it not been told you? Have ye not heard?”

The latter method is borrowed from that magnificent theatre “De ce beau theater du monde.” “From that beautiful theater of the world.” in which the glory of God shines above and below. If the discourse had been addressed to foreigners and heathens, he would have been satisfied with this second demonstration, as we see that Paul also was; for, having to do with the inhabitants of Lystra, to whom no knowledge of heavenly doctrine had been conveyed, he employs none but natural arguments, that “God, by giving rain and sunshine, did not leave himself (ἀμάρτυρον) without witness.” (Acts 14:17.) But when the Prophet spoke to the Jews about true godliness, it would have been improper for him to pass by the Law, which rendered them doubly inexcusable if, by neglecting it, they profaned themselves with unbelievers; for they had been convinced not only by the sight of their eyes, but also by the hearing of their cars, which God beat incessantly by the preaching of his Law. Since, therefore, from their mother’s womb they had sucked along with the milk the true knowledge of God, and had been taught by their fathers through a long succession of generations, the Prophet justly argues that they will be exceedingly ungrateful and wicked, if such assistance produce no good effect upon them.

Hath it not been told you from the beginning? The phrase, from the beginning, or “long ago,” conveys the idea that not only had they been educated from childhood in the pure worship of God, but during a succession of ages there had been largely enjoyed by that nation a doctrine which would not suffer them to go astray, provided that they were attentive; as if he had said, “Ye have not any new God, but the same God who revealed himself from the beginning to Abraham, Moses, and the rest of the fathers.” And indeed it yields no small confirmation, that the doctrine which had been continued among believers during so many ages must have been ancient. Not that antiquity alone is sufficient for establishing the certainty of faith, (for, on the contrary, the Gentiles might easily have objected, that their superstitions were not less ancient,) but since “from the beginning” the authority of the Law had been abundantly ratified, and God had testified that it came from him, long experience added no small confirmation, when they knew that their ancestors had delivered to posterity a form of religion which they could not throw away without receiving the stamp of base apostasy. Such a commencement, therefore, and such progress quickly remove all doubt. It is one and the same faith that has been held by us and by our fathers, for they and we have acknowledged the same God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The same word, the same promises, and the same end, have been exhibited to all believers.

From the foundations of the earth. This is figurative language, in which a part is taken for the whole; for a part of the world is put; for the whole world. God has exhibited this world as a mirror to men, that by beholding it they may acknowledge his majesty, so that it is a lively image of invisible things, as Paul explains at great length in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. Their ignorance is therefore “without excuse;” for they cannot allege that they do not know God who has revealed himself in so many ways. (Romans 1:20.) And indeed men sin more through insolence and pride than through ignorance; for they despise God who manifests himself openly and speaks plainly, and their attention is occupied with creatures, and with the most trifling matters. Has such contempt any title to be excused? Do they not deserve to be blinded, and to adore their own inventions instead of God, which we see has happened to almost all? Such punishment is unquestionably just and due to so great pride. And if to that knowledge which we obtain through the creatures there be likewise added the doctrine of the word, we are much less excusable. Isaiah has therefore joined both kinds of knowledge, in order to shew that the Jews ought to be doubly condemned, if they did not place confidence in God, after having received instruction concerning his power and goodness.

22. It is he that sitteth. He pursues the same subject, though in a different manner, and extols the glory and power of God. Why he does so we have already in some measure explained. It is because we are so prone to distrust, that the very smallest occasion makes us waver; and therefore the Prophet is constrained to repeat the same thing in many ways, that he may keep our weak and inconstant hearts in the exercise of confidence in God. Formerly he spoke of the creation of the world, but now he comes to the continual government of it; for God did not only for a single moment exert his power for creating the world, but he manifests his power not less efficaciously in preserving it. And this is worthy of observation; for our minds would be little impressed by knowing that God is the creator of the world, if his hand were not continually stretched out for upholding it in existence. By the word sitteth the Prophet means, that the earth does not remain firmly and permanently in its place any further than as it is upheld by the power of God; for “sitting” is a metaphorical term which denotes “government.”

The inhabitants of which are as locusts. By comparing the inhabitants of the earth to locusts, he reminds us that God cannot be confined within such narrow boundaries, because “even the heavens (1 Kings 8:27) do not contain him;” that we may learn, whenever we mention God, to conceive nothing earthly or human as belonging to his incomprehensible glory. Besides, this metaphor shews how ridiculous is the blindness of men when they claim anything for themselves; for they gain by their boastings just as much as if some small creatures, such as locusts, would elevate themselves by leaping; but they must immediately fall back on the earth.

Spreadeth it out as a tent. David also employs the same form of expression, (Psalm 104:2,) and both speak of the aspect and spreading out of the heavens with respect to us; for they do not mean that God spreads out the heavens, that he may dwell in them, but rather that there may be given to us a place of habitation under them; for while the earth sustains, the heavens cover us, so that we have a dwelling close and covered on all sides.

But it may be thought that these metaphors detract greatly from the dignity of the subject of which the Prophet discourses, while his object is to commend and exalt it to the utmost of his power. What is a curtain? What is a tent? I reply, these metaphors tend nevertheless to exalt the subject; for it is as if he had said, “that it is as easy for God to spread out heaven, as for a man to spread out a curtain.” And he leaves to every person to consider how great is the difference between heaven and a curtain, and what is their size, which any person may easily understand. Lastly, there is an implied contrast between tabernacles or houses Les maisons. which men are long, and laboriously, and at great expense employed in building, and yet which hardly rise to a hundred feet, and the immeasurable height of the heavens spread out by an instantaneous act of the will of God, which makes abundantly manifest how great and how excellent a workman he is.

23. He bringeth the mighty to nothing. He proceeds in extolling the providence of God, by which he governs the whole world, but more especially mankind. Already and but a little ago he had begun to remark that God did not create the world, so as afterwards to allow it to be governed by chance, but that he undertakes the preservation of it, and keeps it under his power and authority; but as he deigns to look more closely at mankind, so the Prophet selects this department, that by means of it he may extol God’s providence. The sum of what he says is, that God’s government extends far and wide, so that he directs and governs everything according to his pleasure; but he shews, (what was also highly advantageous to be known,) that even in the life of men striking proofs of the immediate exercise of the power of God are visible, and, not even satisfied with the general doctrine, he brings forward one class which ought still more to arouse our attention.

The governors of the earth as if they were not. “He maketh the judges of the earth as vanity.” — Eng. Ver. “The judges (or rulers) of the earth like emptiness (or desolation) he has made.” — Alexander. Anything that happens to the undistinguished mass of common people is despised and passed by as unworthy of being observed; but when kingdoms and monarchies, or men of high rank, fall from their elevation, it seems as if the earth had been shaken; and the Prophet skilfully avails himself of such proofs to arouse us. It might, indeed, be supposed that princes and magistrates are exempted from the common lot, and are not subject to the ordinary miseries of men; for by their splendor they dazzle the eyes and understandings of all men. But their lustre is entirely dimmed; and therefore the Prophet especially mentions them, and declares that the Lord “bringeth them to nothing.” And if the hand of God is so powerful against nobles and princes, what must we think of the common people? Will he not also treat the ordinary crowd according to his pleasure, and drive them wherever he thinks fit? Will he not either give or take away from them, whenever he pleases, both strength and courage?

24. It is as if they had not been planted. Though the particle אף (aph) signifies also, yet in this passage it may be more appropriately rendered “so that;” and thus the plain meaning will be, “So that you may say that they were not planted or sown.” It is an amplification of what he had formerly said, for he shews that the princes are totally destroyed and rooted out, so that no trace of them is left, any more than if they had never existed. So long as they remain in prosperity, they appear to be so strong as to be beyond the possibility of being thrown down by any adverse event. “Que le vent d’adversite ne les puisse abattre.” “That the wind of adversity cannot throw them down.” but such changes happen as blot out their name and remembrance, so that you would say that they had never existed; and we see that this has happened not only to men but even to very flourishing kingdoms.

Since, therefore, great downfalls are so many tokens of God’s dreadful power, let us learn not to lean on earthly and deceitful supports, but, whatever may be the amount of our riches or strength, let us depend on him. God does not, as heathen men babble, turn about this world like a ball, as if he took pleasure in this game; but whenever any person is highly elevated, he never ceases from insolent boasting till he is thrown down headlong, so that the judgments of God are always manifest. We are also reminded by it, that it is wrong to ascribe to fortune or to any other cause the various events that happen; for God was not an instantaneous Creator, that would immediately abandon the charge of his work, but incessantly applies his hand, so that nothing is done but by his will and pleasure. Seeing that various changes thus happen in the world, seeing that those things which were thought to be firm and stable are transitory and fading, let us turn our minds to that supreme providence of God.

Even while he bloweth on them. Hence he shows how light and trivial before God are those things which commonly dazzle our eyes and fill us with amazement; for we cannot think of any great king without being perfectly alarmed and stupified. But he shows that kings and princes are like stubble before God, by whose breath they are driven, as by a whirlwind, at any instant that he pleases. We are therefore taught that we ought never to be overwhelmed by the sight of any creature, so as not to render to God the honor and glory that are due to him. This ought to have been carefully considered by the Jews, who would have thought that that monarchy of the Babylonians, whose captives they were, would never be destroyed, and that they could not be rescued out of their hands, if they had not called to remembrance this doctrine, that nothing in this world is so durable that it may not be dissolved by the breath of God. That they may not despair of their salvation, the Prophet reminds them that God, as soon as he shall be pleased to thunder from heaven, will crush all that strength in their enemies that terrifies them, so that it shall vanish away.

25. And to whom will ye liken me? He repeats the former statement, (verse 18,) by which he said that the Lord would not suffer himself to be likened to idols; that the Jews might not in any degree detract, from his power, on account of their having been so long held captive in the hand of unbelievers, or think that idols are anything on account of the prosperity of their worshippers, whom they were compelled to serve; for, by reasoning in this manner about the power of the true God and of idols, they would have compared him with idols. On this account he repeats, as it were in indignation, “To whom will ye liken me?” as if he had said, “Will you rob me of my majesty by your comparisons?” For although men have various thoughts of God, and transform him according to their fancy, yet he continues to be like himself, for he does not change his nature on account of the inventions of men.

Saith the Holy One. He appropriately applies to God the term Holy, by which title he indirectly blames or accuses the Jews of base ingratitude, if, as they have been set apart by him, they do not sanctify him in return. No holiness will be found in the gods of the Gentiles; they are the mere inventions of men. A grievous injury therefore is done to God, and he is basely degraded from his rank, when idols are brought into collision with him, and when it becomes a subject of debate if they can do more than God himself.

26. Lift up your eyes on high. The Prophet appears to linger too long on this subject, more especially because it presents no obscurity; for he repeats by many statements what is acknowledged by all, that God’s wonderful power and wisdom may be known from the beautiful order of the world. But we ought to observe what I have already said, that we are so wicked and ungrateful judges of the divine power, that we often imagine God to be inferior to some feeble man. We are more terrified frequently by the empty mask of a single man “L’apparence d’un ver de terre.” “The appearance of a worm of the earth.” than we are strengthened by all the promises of God. Not in vain, therefore, does the Prophet repeat that God is defrauded of his honor, if his power do not lead us to warm admiration of him; nor does he spend his labor in what is superfluous, for we are so dull and sluggish that we need to be continually aroused and excited.

Men see every day the heavens and the stars; but who is there that thinks about their Author? By nature men are formed in such a manner as to make it evident that they were born to contemplate the heavens, and thus to learn their Author; for while God formed other animals to look downwards for pasture, he made man alone erect, and bade him look at what may be regarded as his own habitation.

This is also described beautifully by a poet: “Par un poete profane.” “By a heathen poet.” “While other animals look downwards towards the earth, he gave to man a lofty face, and bade him look at heaven, and lift up his countenance erect towards the stars.”

“Pronaque quum spectent animalia caetera terram, Os homini sublime dedit, coelumque videre Jussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus.”

Some readers will, perhaps, thank me for a translation of the above passage into French rhyme, taken from the French version of this Commentary. — Ed.

“Et neantmoins que tout autre animal Iette toujours son regard principal En contre bas, Dieu a Phomme a donne La face haute, et luy a ordonne De regarder l’excellence des cieux, Et d’eslever aux estoilles ses yeux.” The Prophet therefore points out the wickedness of men who do not acknowledge what is openly placed before their eyes concerning God, but, like cattle, fix their snout in the earth; for, whenever we raise our eyes upwards, with any degree of attention, it is impossible for our senses not to be struck with the majesty of God.

And see who hath created them. By mentioning the stars, he states more clearly that the wonderful order which shines brightly in the face of the heavens preaches loudly that there is one God and Creator of the world; and all who shall observe, that amidst the vast number and variety of the stars, so regular an order and course is so well maintained, will be constrained to make this acknowledgment. For it is not by chance that each of the stars has had its place assigned to it, nor is it at random that they advance uniformly with so great rapidity, and amidst numerous windings move straight forwards, so that they do not deviate a hairbreadth from the path which God has marked out for them. Thus does their wonderful arrangement shew that God is the Author and worker, so that men cannot open their eyes without being constrained to behold the majesty of God in his works.

Bringing out by number their army. Under the word army he, includes two things; their almost infinite number, and their admirable arrangement; for a small number of persons do not constitute an army, and not even a considerable number, if there be not also numerous companies. Besides, it is not called an “army,” when men are collected together at random, and without any selection, and in a confused manner, or when they wander about in a disorderly state, but where there are various classes of officers, who have the charge of ten, or a hundred, or a thousand men, “Mais celle ou il y aura des sergens de bande, capitaines, colonels et autres conducteurs.” “But where there shall be serjeants of companies, captains, colonels, and other officers.” and where the ranks are drawn up and arranged on a fixed plan. Thus the wonderful arrangement of the stars, and their certain courses, may justly be called an “army.”

By the word number he means that God always has this “army” at his command. In an army the soldiers may wander, and may not be immediately collected or brought back to their ranks by the general, though the trumpet sound. But it is otherwise with God. He always has his soldiers in readiness, and that “by number;” that is, he keeps a reckoning of them, so that not one of them is absent.

He will call to all of them by name. The same expression occurs, (Psalm 147:4,) and in the same sense. Some explain it to mean that God knows the number of the stars, which is unknown to us. But David and Isaiah meant a different thing, that is, that God makes use of the stars according to his pleasure; as if one should command a servant, calling him to him by name; and the same thing will afterwards be said of Cyrus, whose labors and service the Lord employed in delivering his people. (Isaiah 45:1.) In a word, it denotes the utmost submission and obedience, when he who is called instantly answers to his name.

By the greatness of his strength. Those who explain the preceding clause to mean that the Lord knows the number of the stars, are also mistaken in supposing that by giving them their names is meant their power and office. Others explain it, that there is not a star that has not its own power and energy, because the Lord gave to them those qualities they would always possess. But others connect these words with יקרא, (yikra,) “he shall call;” as if he had said, “The Lord is so powerful that all the stars listen to his commands.” But a meaning which appears to me to be more appropriate is, that God is so powerful, that, as soon as he has issued an order, all the armies of the stars are ready to yield obedience. In this we have an extraordinary proof of his power, when those highly excellent, creatures unhesitatingly submit to him, and by executing his orders testify that they acknowledge him to be their Author.

Not one shall be wanting. The word איש (ish) is applied by Hebrew writers not only to men and women, but also to other animals, and even to inanimate objects, as in a former passage, (Isaiah 34:16,) when, speaking of the birds that should occupy those splendid abodes, he said that “not one should be wanting,” he used the word איש(ish). In the passage referred to, although not איש (ish) but the feminine form אשה (ishshah) is used, this does not invalidate our author’s argument. — Ed. These words commend to us the power of God, that we may know that there is nothing in heaven or in earth that does not depend on his will and pleasure. Nothing, therefore, can be more shameful or unreasonable than to compare him to idols, which are as worthless as anything can possibly be. “Qui sont plus vaines que la vanite mesme.” “Which are more vain than vanity itself.”

27. Why wilt thou say? The Prophet now expostulates either with the Jews, because they were almost overcome by despair, and did not look to the promises of God, by which they ought, to have supported their minds; or he makes provision for posterity, that they may not sink under any distresses however long continued. The verbs are in the future sense, which might also be explained by the subjunctive mood, Why wouldst thou say? For Isaiah justly infers front the preceding statement, that the chosen people, whatever may happen, ought to wait patiently for God, till he give assistance in due time. He argues from the less to the greater: “Since God keeps every part of the world under his authority, it is impossible that he shall forsake his Church.” Yet it is probable that at that time there were heard among the people complaints, by which they murmured against God, as if he did not care about their salvation, or were slow in rendering assistance, or even shut his eyes and did not see their distresses. The fault which is now corrected is, that they thought that God did not care about them; as usually happens in afflictions, in which we think that God has forsaken us, and exposed us for a prey, and that he takes no concern about the affairs of this world. “Et qu’il ne se soucie des choses de ce monde.”

O Jacob and Israel! By these names he calls to their remembrance the Lord’s covenant, which had been ratified by promises so numerous and so diversified; as if he had said, “Dost thou not think that thou art that people which God hath chosen peculiarly for himself? Why dost thou imagine that he who cannot deceive does not attend to thy cause?”

My way is hidden from Jehovah. He employs the word way for “condition” and ‘cause,” and hidden, for “disregarded” or “unknown;” for if God delay his assistance for a short time, we think that his care does not extend to us. Some explain it differently, that is, that the people are here reproved for thinking that they would not be punished for sinning, and they think that this sentiment resembles such as, “The wicked man hath said in his heart, There is no God.” (Psalm 14:1.) But the Prophets meaning unquestionably was, “Thinkest thou, O Israel, that the Lord taketh no concern about thine affairs?” For he exclaims against the distrust of the people, and chides them sharply, that he may afterwards comfort them, and may show that the Lord will continually assist his people whom he hath undertaken to defend.

And my judgment passeth away from my God. The word judgment confirms our interpretation of the preceding clause; for “judgment” is implored in affliction, when we are unjustly oppressed, or when any one does us wrong; and God is said to favor and undertake “judgment,” or “our right,” when, after having known our cause, he defends and guards us; and he is said to pass by it, when he overlooks us, and permits us to be devoured by our enemies. It is as if he had said, that the Jews act unjustly in complaining that God has disregarded their cause and forsaken them; and by that reproof he prepares them for receiving consolation, for they could not receive it while their minds were occupied with wicked or foolish thoughts. It was therefore necessary first to remove obstructions, and to open up the way for consolation.

28. Hast thou not known? He repeats the same statement which he had formerly made, that the people who had been carefully taught in the school of God were inexcusable for their slothfulness, and chides them sharply for not having profited more by the doctrine of the Law, and by the other means which God had bestowed in addition to that knowledge which they possessed in common with the Gentiles. The word know, which is more general, is put first; because by many miracles and other proofs God had manifested his glory. Next, he asks, Hast thou not heard? As if he had said, “If thou hast profited nothing by being taught by actions and by word that God is never unemployed, it is evident that thou are excessively unteachable.”

That Jehovah is the God of eternity. The Prophet calls him “eternal,” and thus distinguishes him from all idols, which endure but for a time, and were made by men; and truly, if this were deeply seated in our hearts, there would no longer be any room for distrust; for if God is eternal, he never changes or decays, eternity being uniformly attended by this quality, that it is never liable to change, but always remains the same. Since the Jews did not sufficiently believe these things, though they had often “heard” them, the Prophet intended to arouse them by this reproof, in order to shew that they will be doubly guilty before God, if, after having been taught both by his numerous benefits, and by the word, they do not render the honor and glory which are due to him.

And is not wearied by weariness, and there is no searching of his understanding. Here the Prophet makes two statements; first, that God is not wearied in doing good; and, secondly, that no man can explore his wisdom. In the former clause he shews that, nothing will hinder God from continuing to exercise his kindness; for he is not like men whose resources are exhausted by giving frequently, or who are wearied by continually bestowing new favors, or who repent of their generosity. His kindness is never exhausted; if he was kind to the fathers, he will be not less kind and bountiful to posterity. As to the allegation, that God very often acts differently from what we think to be best for us, the Prophet meets it by saying that his purpose is incomprehensible, and warns us that we ought not to murmur, though he does not all at once comply with our wishes; because nothing is better adapted to cherish our hope than this sobriety, which leads us to consider how marvellously God works in preserving us, and thus to submit to his secret counsel.

29. He giveth power to the faint. The Prophet now applies to the present subject the general statements which he made; for we have said that his intention was to give warmer encouragement to the people, and to lead them to cherish better hope. Because the Jews were at that time weakened and destitute of all strength, he shews that on this account it belongs to God to give assistance to those who were thus exhausted and weakened. He therefore magnifies the power of God on this ground, that they may conclude and believe that they ought not to doubt of their salvation so long as they enjoy his favor. It was indeed to the people who were held captive in Babylon that the Prophet looked; but we ought also to apply this doctrine to ourselves, that whenever our strength shall fail, and we shall be almost laid low, we may call to remembrance that the Lord stretches out his hand ‘to the faint,” who are sinking through the want of all help. But first, we must feel our faintness and poverty, that the saying of Paul, “The power of God is made perfect in our weakness,” (2 Corinthians 12:9,) may be fulfilled; for if our hearts are not deeply moved by a conviction of our weakness, we cannot receive seasonable assistance from God.

30. The youths are wearied and faint. By this comparison the Prophet illustrates more powerfully what he had formerly said, that the strength which God imparts to his elect is invincible and unwearied; for men’s strength easily fails, but God’s strength never fails. It is indeed certain that all the vigor which naturally dwells in us proceeds from God; but since men claim as their own what God has bestowed generally on all, the Prophet thus distinguishes between the strength of men which appears to be born with them, and that strength by which God peculiarly supports his elect; for God’s kindness, which is diffused throughout all nature, is not sufficiently perceived. And thus by “men’s strength” he means that which is generally possessed by mankind, and by “God’s assistance,” he means that by which he peculiarly assists us after our strength has failed; for the Prophet speaks of the grace of God which is cormmonly called supernatural, and says that it is perpetual, while men can have nothing in themselves but what is fading and transitory; that by this mark he may distinguish between the Church of God and the rest of the world, and between spiritual grace and earthly prosperity.

And the young men by falling fall. In the former clause he made use of the word נערים, (negnarim,) youths, but now he adds בחרים, (bachurim,) which means not only that they were “young men,” but also that they had been selected. “Men in full vigor, picked men, in military language.” — Stock. The repetition of the same statement may be supposed to refer particularly to age, though he means that they were persons of the choicest vigor and in the prime of life. With this design he recommends that excellent privilege which God bestows on his children in preference to other men; that they may be satisfied with their lot, and may bear no envy to earthly men, “Aux enfans de ce monde.” “To the children of this world.” for that strength of which they boast. In a word, he shews that men are greatly deceived if they are puffed up by confidence in their own strength, for they immediately sink and faint.

He appears to allude to what happens every day, that the stronger any person is, the more boldly does he attempt what is exceedingly difficult, and the consequence is, that they who are naturally more robust seldom live to be old men. They think nothing too hard or difficult, they attempt everything, and rashly encounter all dangers; but they give way in the middle of their course, and suffer the punishment of their rashness. The same thing befalls those who are proud of any gift which God has bestowed on them, and are full of confidence in themselves; for all that they have received from God is reduced to nothing, or rather turns to their ruin and destruction; and thus they are justly punished for their insolence.

31. But they that wait for Jehovah. Hebrew writers employ the phrase, “exchanging strength,” “The phrase translated ‘they shall gain new strength,’ properly means ‘they shall exchange strength;’ but the usage of the verb determines its specific meaning to be that of changing for the better, or improving. The sense is therefore correctly given in the English Version (‘they shall renew their strength’).” — Alexander. to denote “gathering new strength,” and thus “being restored.” The Prophet therefore shews, that godly persons, who shall hope in God, will not be deficient in strength; and he confirms what he formerly said,

“In rest and silence shall be your strength.” (Isaiah 30:15.)

We must not become agitated, or throw ourselves forward rashly, but “wait” patiently. In this passage, therefore, waiting means nothing else than patience. Violent men dash themselves to pieces by their own eagerness, but the vigor of godly men, though it has less display, and often appears to lie buried while they calmly “wait for” God’s assistance, is refreshed and renewed. We must therefore return to the saying of Paul, that

“the power of God is made perfect in our weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9.)

We must, therefore be fully convinced of our weakness, that we may yield to the power of God. The Jews, who were oppressed by that cruel captivity, had great need of this doctrine; but for us also, during this wretchedly ruinous condition of the Church, it is exceedingly needful.

They shall raise their wings as eagles. It is generally believed that the Prophet uses this phrase in the same sense that the Psalmist says,

“Thy youth shall be renewed like that of the eagle.” (Psalm 103:5.)

It is certain that the “eagle” is very long-lived as compared with other birds.

Aristotle and Pliny affirm that it never dies of old age, but of hunger; that is, that when the upper part of the beak becomes too large, it cannot take food into its mouth, and for a long time subsists entirely on what it drinks. One Zaadias, as all Jews are audacious in constructing fables, pretends that the eagle flies upward into the region that is near the sun, and approaches the sun so closely, that its old wings are burned, and other new ones grow in their place; but this is utterly absurd and fabulous. The Prophet means that they who trust in the Lord will be vigorous, like eagles, till the most advanced old age. But seeing that eagles fly higher than other birds, by which they shew remarkable swiftness, which has also given rise to the proverb, “An eagle among the clouds,” this passage may be understood to denote not only long life, but also strength and agility; so that Isaiah, after having shewn that their strength is recruited, adds that they are more vigorous, and ascend to a great height. Such is also the import of what follows, —

They shall run and shall not be weary. It is as if he had said, that the Lord will assist them, so that they shall pursue their course without any molestation. It is a figurative expression, by which he intimates that believers Les fideles. will always be ready to perform their duty with cheerfulness. But it will be said, “There are so many troubles which we must endure in this life; how then does he say that we shall be exempt from weariness?” I reply, believers are indeed distressed and wearied, but they are at length delivered from their distresses, and feel that they have been restored by the power of God; for it happens to them according to the saying of Paul,

“While we are troubled on every side, we are not overwhelmed; we are perplexed, but are not in despair; we suffer persecution, but are not forsaken; we are cast down, but are not destroyed.” (2 Corinthians 4:8, 9.)

Let us therefore learn to flee to the Lord, who, after we have encountered many storms, will at length conduct us to the harbor; for he who hath opened up a path, and hath commanded us to advance in that course in which he hath placed us, does not intend to assist us only for a single day, and to forsake us in the middle of our course, (Philippians 1:6,) but will conduct us to the goal.

CHAPTER 41.

Isaiah 41:1-29

1. Keep silence before me, O islands; and let the people renew their strength: let them come near; then let them speak: let us come near together to judgment.

1. Tacete mihi insulae; et colligant populi vires; accedant, tunc loquentur; pariter ad judicium accedamus.

2. Who raised up the righteous man from the east, called him to his foot, gave the nations before him, and made him rule over kings? he gave them as the dust to his sword, and as driven stubble to his bow.

2. Quis excitavit ab oriente justitiam, vocavit eum ad pedem suum, dedit coram co gentes, et reges subjugavit; dedit quasi pulverem gladio ejus, et quasi stipulam propulsam arcui ejus?

3. He pursued them, and passed safely; even by the way that he had not gone with his feet.

3. Persequutus est cos; evasit in pace, semita qua non ingressus est pes ejus.

4. Who hath wrought and done it, calling the generations from the beginning? I the LORD, the first, and with the last; I am he.

4. Quis designavit, et fecit, vocans nationes ab initio? Ego Iehova prius, et cum novissimis ego idem.

5. The isles saw it, and feared; the ends of the earth were afraid, drew near, and came.

5. Viderunt insulae et timuerunt; extremi fines terrae expaverunt, accesserunt, et venerunt.

6. They helped every one his neighbour; and every one said to his brother, Be of good courage.

6. Quisque proximo suo opem tulit, et fratri suo dixit, Sis strenuus.

7. So the carpenter encouraged the goldsmith, and he that smootheth with the hammer him that smote the anvil, saying, It is ready for the sodering: and he fastened it with nails, that it should not be moved.

7. Confortavit faber conflatorem, malleo percutiens tundentem vicissim, et dixit, Bonum hoc ad plumbaturam; firmavitque clavis, ut non moveretur.

8. But thou, Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend.

8. At tu Israel servus meus, Iacob quem elegi, semen Abrahae amici mei.

9. Thou whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called thee from the chief men thereof, and said unto thee, Thou art my servant; I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away.

9. Quoniam apprehendi to ab extremitatibus terrae, ab eminentiis ejus vocavi to, ac dixi tibi, Servus meus es tu, elegi to, et non repudiavi to.

10. Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.

10. Ne timeas, quoniam ego tecum sum; non terrearis, quoniam ego Deus tuus sum, qui to corroboro, adhuc (vel, utique) opem tibi feram, adhuc to sustentabo dextera justitiae meae.

11. Behold, all they that were incensed against thee shall be ashamed and confounded: they shall be as nothing; and they that strive with thee shall perish.

11. Ecce pudefient et erubescent omnes qui to provocant; erunt quasi in nihilum, et peribunt qui tecum litigant.

12. Thou shalt seek them, and shalt not find them, even them that contended with thee: they that war against thee shall be as nothing, and as a thing of nought.

12. Quaeres cos, nee invenies; qui contendunt tecum erunt quasi nihilum, et qui tecum belligerantur, quasi consumptio.

13. For I the LORD thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.

13. Quoniam ego Iehova Deus tuus, apprehendens dextram tuam, ac dicens tibi, Ne timeas, ego tibi opitulabor.

14. Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith the LORD, and thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.

14. Ne timeas, vermis Iacob, mortui Israel; ego auxiliabor tibi, dicit Iehova, et redemptor (vel, vindex) tuus, Sanctus Israelis.

15. Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth: thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff.

15. Ecce posui to in traham; ut tribula nova habens dentes, triturabis montes et comminues, et colles in pulverem rediges.

16. Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and thou shalt rejoice in the LORD, and shalt glory in the Holy One of Israel.

16. Ventilabis eos, et ventus toilet, et turbo sparget eos. Tu vero exultabis in Iehova, in Sancto Israel gloriaberis.

17. When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the LORD will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them.

17. Egeni et pauperes quaerent aquas, quae non apparent; lingua eorum siti exarebit. Ego Iehova exaudiam cos; ego Deus Israelis non descram eos.

18. I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.

18. Aperiam in editis cacuminibus flumina, et fontes in media planitie; desertum ponam in stagna aquarum, et terram vastam in scaturigines aquarum.

19. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah-tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine, and the box tree together:

19. Dabo in deserto cedrum, spinum, myrtum, et pinum; ponam in solitudine abietem, ulmum, et popu-lure sired.

20. That they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of the LORD hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it.

20. Itaque videant, et cognoseant, cogitent, et intelligant simul, quod manus Iehovae fecerit hoc, et Sanctus Israelis creaverit istud.

21. Produce your cause, saith the LORD; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob.

21. Adeste cansae vestrae, dicit Iehova; afferte firmamenta vestra, dicit rex Iacob.

22. Let them bring them forth, and shew us what shall happen: let them shew the former things, what they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or declare us things for to come.

22. Adducant, et annuntient nobis quae ventura sunt; priora quae fuerunt nuntient, et apponemus cor nostrum; et sciemus novissima eorum; et quae ventura sunt praedicate nobis.

23. Shew the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods: yea, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and behold it together.

23. Nunciate quae futura sunt in posterum, ut sciamus vos deos esse; quin benefacite, ant malefacite, ut enarremus, et videanus (vel, mire-mur) pariter.

24. Behold, ye are of nothing, and your work of nought: an abomination is he that chooseth you.

24. Ecce vos estis ex nihilo, et factura vestra ex nihilo; abominationem elegit in vobis (homo.)

25. I have raised up one from the north, and he shall come: from the rising of the sun shall he call upon my name: and he shall come upon princes as upon morter, and as the potter treadeth clay.

25. Excitavi ab aquilone, et venit; ab oriente solis vocabit in nomine meo; et veniet ad principes, quasi ad lutum, et tanquam figulus calcabit lutum.

26. Who hath declared from the beginning, that we may know? and beforetime, that we may say, He is righteous? yea, there is none that sheweth, yea, there is none that dcclareth, yea, there is none that heareth your words.

26. Quis nuntiavit ab initio, ut cognoscamus? Jam ante, et dicemus, justus. Utique non est annuntians; utique non audire faciens; utique non audiens verba vestra.

27. The first shall say to Zion, Behold, behold them: and I will give to Jerusalem one that bringeth good tidings.

27. Primus Sioni, Ecce, ecce ipsi; et Ierosolymae nuntium dabo.

28. For I beheld, and there was no man; even among them, and there was no counsellor, that, when I asked of them, could answer a word.

28. Aspexi, nec nullus erat; de istis inquisivi, et nullus erat consiliarius; interrogavi cos, nec responderunt verbum.

29. Behold, they are all vanity; their works are nothing; their molten images are wind and confusion.

29. Ecce onmes vanitas, et defectus opera; eorum; ventus et chaos simulachra eorum.

CHAPTER 40

Is 40:1-31. Second Part of the Prophecies of Isaiah.

The former were local and temporary in their reference. These belong to the distant future, and are world-wide in their interest; the deliverance from Babylon under Cyrus, which he here foretells by prophetic suggestion, carries him on to the greater deliverance under Messiah, the Saviour of Jews and Gentiles in the present eclectic Church, and the restorer of Israel and Head of the world-wide kingdom, literal and spiritual, ultimately. As Assyria was the hostile world power in the former part, which refers to Isaiah's own time, so Babylon is so in the latter part, which refers to a period long subsequent. The connecting link, however, is furnished (Is 39:6) at the close of the former part. The latter part was written in the old age of Isaiah, as appears from the greater mellowness of style and tone which pervades it; it is less fiery and more tender and gentle than the former part.

1. Comfort ye, comfort ye--twice repeated to give double assurance. Having announced the coming captivity of the Jews in Babylon, God now desires His servants, the prophets (Is 52:7), to comfort them. The scene is laid in Babylon; the time, near the close of the captivity; the ground of comfort is the speedy ending of the captivity, the Lord Himself being their leader.

my people ... your God--correlatives (Jr 31:33; Ho 1:9, 10). It is God's covenant relation with His people, and His "word" of promise (Is 40:8) to their forefathers, which is the ground of His interposition in their behalf, after having for a time chastised them (Is 54:8).

2. comfortably--literally, "to the heart"; not merely to the intellect.

Jerusalem--Jerusalem though then in ruins, regarded by God as about to be rebuilt; her people are chiefly meant, but the city is personified.

cry--publicly and emphatically as a herald cries aloud (Is 40:3).

warfare--or, the appointed time of her misery (Job 7:1, Margin; Job 14:14; Da 10:1). The ulterior and Messianic reference probably is the definite time when the legal economy of burdensome rites is at an end (Ga 4:3, 4).

pardoned--The Hebrew expresses that her iniquity is so expiated that God now delights in restoring her.

double for all her sins--This can only, in a very restricted sense, hold good of Judah's restoration after the first captivity. For how can it be said her "warfare was accomplished," when as yet the galling yoke of Antiochus and also of Rome was before them? The "double for her sins" must refer to the twofold captivity, the Assyrian and the Roman; at the coming close of this latter dispersion, and then only, can her "iniquity" be said to be "pardoned," or fully expiated [Houbigant]. It does not mean double as much as she deserved, but ample punishment in her twofold captivity. Messiah is the antitypical Israel (compare Mt 2:15, with Ho 11:1). He indeed has "received" of sufferings amply more than enough to expiate "for our sins" (Ro 5:15, 17). Otherwise (cry unto her) "that she shall receive (blessings) of the Lord's hand double to the punishment of all her sins" (so "sin" is used, Zec 14:19, Margin) [Lowth]. The English Version is simpler.

3. crieth in the wilderness--So the Septuagint and Mt 3:3 connect the words. The Hebrew accents, however, connect them thus: "In the wilderness prepare ye," &c., and the parallelism also requires this, "Prepare ye in the wilderness," answering to "make straight in the desert." Matthew was entitled, as under inspiration, to vary the connection, so as to bring out another sense, included in the Holy Spirit's intention; in Mt 3:1, "John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness," answers thus to "The voice of one crying in the wilderness." Maurer takes the participle as put for the finite verb (so in Is 40:6), "A voice crieth." The clause, "in the wilderness," alludes to Israel's passage through it from Egypt to Canaan (Psa 68:7), Jehovah being their leader; so it shall be at the coming restoration of Israel, of which the restoration from Babylon was but a type (not the full realization; for their way from it was not through the "wilderness"). Where John preached (namely, in the wilderness; the type of this earth, a moral wilderness), there were the hearers who are ordered to prepare the way of the Lord, and there was to be the coming of the Lord [Bengel]. John, though he was immediately followed by the suffering Messiah, is rather the herald of the coming reigning Messiah, as Mal 4:5, 6 ("before the great and dreadful day of the Lord"), proves. Mt 17:11 (compare Ac 3:21) implies that John is not exclusively meant; and that though in one sense Elias has come, in another he is yet to come. John was the figurative Elias, coming "in the spirit and power of Elias" (Lu 1:17); Joh 1:21, where John the Baptist denies that he was the actual Elias, accords with this view. Mal 4:5, 6 cannot have received its exhaustive fulfilment in John; the Jews always understood it of the literal Elijah. As there is another consummating advent of Messiah Himself, so perhaps there is to be of his forerunner Elias, who also was present at the transfiguration.

the Lord--Hebrew, Jehovah; as this is applied to Jesus, He must be Jehovah (Mt 3:3).

4. Eastern monarchs send heralds before them in a journey to clear away obstacles, make causeways over valleys, and level hills. So John's duty was to bring back the people to obedience to the law and to remove all self-confidence, pride in national privileges, hypocrisy, and irreligion, so that they should be ready for His coming (Mal 4:6; Lu 1:17).

crooked--declivities.

5. see it--The Septuagint for "it," has "the salvation of God." So Lu 3:6 (compare Lu 2:30, that is, Messiah); but the Evangelist probably took these words from Is 52:10.

for--rather, "All flesh shall see that the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it" [Bengel].

6. The voice--the same divine herald as in Is 40:3.

he--one of those ministers or prophets (see on Is 40:1) whose duty it was, by direction of "the voice," to "comfort the Lord's afflicted people with the promises of brighter days."

All flesh is grass--The connection is, "All human things, however goodly, are transitory: God's promises alone steadfast" (Is 40:8, 15, 17, 23, 24); this contrast was already suggested in Is 40:5, "All flesh ... the mouth of the Lord." 1Pe 1:24, 25 applies this passage distinctly to the gospel word of Messiah (compare Joh 12:24; Jas 1:10).

7. spirit of the Lord--rather, "wind of Jehovah" (Psa 103:16). The withering east wind of those countries sent by Jehovah (Jon 4:8).

the people--rather, "this people" [Lowth], which may refer to the Babylonians [Rosenmuller]; but better, mankind in general, as in Is 42:5, so Is 40:6, "all flesh"; this whole race, that is, man.

9. Rather, "Oh, thou that bringest good things to Zion; thou that bringest good tidings to Jerusalem." "Thou" is thus the collective personification of the messengers who announce God's gracious purpose to Zion (see on Is 40:1); Is 52:7 confirms this [Vulgate and Gesenius]. If English Version be retained, the sense will be the glad message was first to be proclaimed to Jerusalem, and then from it as the center to all "Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth" (Lu 24:47, 49; Ac 1:8) [Vitringa and Hengstenberg].

mountain--It was customary for those who were about to promulgate any great thing, to ascend a hill from which they could be seen and heard by all (Jud 9:7; Mt 5:1).

be not afraid--to announce to the exiles that their coming return home is attended with danger in the midst of the Babylonians. The gospel minister must "open his mouth boldly" (Pr 29:25; Ep 6:19).

Behold--especially at His second coming (Zec 12:10; 14:5).

10. with strong hand--or, "against the strong"; rather, "as a strong one" [Maurer]. Or, against the strong one, namely, Satan (Mt 12:29; Re 20:2, 3, 10) [Vitringa].

arm--power (Psa 89:13; 98:1).

for him--that is, He needs not to seek help for Himself from any external source, but by His own inherent power He gains rule for Himself (so Is 40:14).

work--or, "recompense for his work"; rather, "recompense which He gives for work" (Is 62:11; Re 22:12).

11. feed--including all a shepherd's care--"tend" (Eze 34:23; Psa 23:1; He 13:20; 1Pe 2:25).

carry--applicable to Messiah's restoration of Israel, as sheep scattered in all lands, and unable to move of themselves to their own land (Psa 80:1; Jr 23:3). As Israel was "carried from the womb" (that is, in its earliest days) (Is 63:9, 11, 12; Psa 77:20), so it shall be in "old age" (that is, its latter days) (Is 46:3, 4).

gently lead--as a thoughtful shepherd does the ewes "giving suck" (Margin) (Ge 33:13, 14).

12. Lest the Jews should suppose that He who was just before described as a "shepherd" is a mere man, He is now described as God.

Who--Who else but God could do so? Therefore, though the redemption and restoration of His people, foretold here, was a work beyond man's power, they should not doubt its fulfilment since all things are possible to Him who can accurately regulate the proportion of the waters as if He had measured them with His hand (compare Is 40:15). But Maurer translates: "Who can measure," &c., that is, How immeasurable are the works of God? The former is a better explanation (Job 28:25; Pr 30:4).

span--the space from the end of the thumb to the end of the middle finger extended; God measures the vast heavens as one would measure a small object with his span.

dust of the earth--All the earth is to Him but as a few grains of dust contained in a small measure (literally, "the third part of a larger measure").

hills in a balance--adjusted in their right proportions and places, as exactly as if He had weighed them out.

13. Quoted in Ro 11:34; 1Co 2:16. The Hebrew here for "directed" is the same as in Is 40:12 for "meted out"; thus the sense is, "Jehovah measures out heaven with His span"; but who can measure Him? that is, Who can search out His Spirit (mind) wherewith He searches out and accurately adjusts all things? Maurer rightly takes the Hebrew in the same sense as in Is 40:12 (so Pr 16:2; 21:2), "weigh," "ponder." "Direct," as in English Version, answers, however, better to "taught" in the parallel clause.

14. path of judgment--His wisdom, whereby He so beautifully adjusts the places and proportions of all created things.

15. of--rather, (hanging) from a bucket [Maurer].

he taketh up ... as a very little thing--rather, "are as a mere grain of dust which is taken up," namely, by the wind; literally, "one taketh up," impersonally (Ex 16:14) [Maurer].

isles--rather, "lands" in general, answering to "the nations" in the parallel clause; perhaps lands, like Mesopotamia, enclosed by rivers [Jerome] (so Is 42:15). However, English Version, "isles" answers well to "mountains" (Is 40:12), both alike being lifted up by the power of God; in fact, "isles" are mountains upheaved from the bed of the sea by volcanic agency; only that he seems here to have passed from unintelligent creatures (Is 40:12) to intelligent, as nations and lands, that is, their inhabitants.

16. All Lebanon's forest would not supply fuel enough to burn sacrifices worthy of the glory of God (Is 66:1; 1Ki 8:27; Psa 50:8-13).

beasts--which abounded in Lebanon.

17. (Psa 62:9; Da 4:35).

less than nothing--Maurer translates, as in Is 41:24, "of nothing" (partitively; or expressive of the nature of a thing), a mere nothing.

vanity--emptiness.

18. Which of the heathen idols, then, is to be compared to this Almighty God? This passage, if not written (as Barnes thinks) so late as the idolatrous times of Manasseh, has at least a prospective warning reference to them and subsequent reigns; the result of the chastisement of Jewish idolatry in the Babylonish captivity was that thenceforth after the restoration the Jews never fell into it. Perhaps these prophecies here may have tended to that result (see 2Ki 23:26, 27).

19. graven--rather, an image in general; for it is incongruous to say "melteth" (that is, casts out of metal) a graven image (that is, one of carved wood); so Jr 10:14, "molten image."

spreadeth it over--(See on Is 30:22).

chains--an ornament lavishly worn by rich Orientals (Is 3:18, 19), and so transferred to their idols. Egyptian relics show that idols were suspended in houses by chains.

20. impoverished--literally, "sunk" in circumstances.

no oblation--he who cannot afford to overlay his idol with gold and silver (Is 40:19).

tree ... not rot--the cedar, cypress, oak, or ash (Is 44:14).

graven--of wood; not a molten one of metal.

not be moved--that shall be durable.

21. ye--who worship idols. The question emphatically implies, they had known.

from the beginning--(Is 41:4, 26; 48:16). God is the beginning (Re 1:8). The tradition handed down from the very first, of the creation of all things by God at the beginning, ought to convince you of His omnipotence and of the folly of idolatry.

22. It is he--rather, connected with last verse, "Have ye not known?"--have ye not understood Him that sitteth ...? (Is 40:26) [Maurer].

circle--applicable to the globular form of the earth, above which, and the vault of sky around it, He sits. For "upon" translate "above."

as grasshoppers--or locusts in His sight (Nu 13:33), as He looks down from on high (Psa 33:13, 14; 113:4-6).

curtain--referring to the awning which the Orientals draw over the open court in the center of their houses as a shelter in rain or hot weather.

23. (Psa 107:4; Da 2:21).

judges--that is, rulers; for these exercised judicial authority (Psa 2:10). The Hebrew, shophtee, answers to the Carthaginian chief magistrates, suffetes.

24. they--the "princes and judges" (Is 40:23) who oppose God's purposes and God's people. Often compared to tall trees (Psa 37:35; Da 4:10).

not ... sown--the seed, that is, race shall become extinct (Na 1:14).

stock--not even shall any shoots spring up from the stump when the tree has been cut down: no descendants whatever (Job 14:7; see on Is 11:1).

and ... also--so the Septuagint. But Maurer translates, "They are hardly (literally, 'not yet', as in 2Ki 20:4) planted (&c.) when He (God) blows upon them."

blow--The image is from the hot east wind (simoon) that "withers" vegetation.

whirlwind ... stubble--(Psa 83:13), where, "like a wheel," refers to the rotatory action of the whirlwind on the stubble.

25. (Compare Is 40:18).

26. bringeth out ... host--image from a general reviewing his army: He is Lord of Sabaoth, the heavenly hosts (Job 38:32).

calleth ... by names--numerous as the stars are. God knows each in all its distinguishing characteristics--a sense which "name" often bears in Scripture; so in Ge 2:19, 20, Adam, as God's vicegerent, called the beasts by name, that is, characterized them by their several qualities, which, indeed, He has imparted.

by the greatness ... faileth--rather, "by reason of abundance of (their inner essential) force and firmness of strength, not one of them is driven astray"; referring to the sufficiency of the physical forces with which He has endowed the heavenly bodies, to prevent all disorder in their motions [Horsley]. In English Version the sense is, "He has endowed them with their peculiar attributes ('names') by the greatness of His might," and the power of His strength (the better rendering, instead of, "for that He is strong").

27. Since these things are so, thou hast no reason to think that thine interest ("way," that is, condition, Psa 37:5; Jr 12:1) is disregarded by God.

judgment is passed over from--rather, "My cause is neglected by my God; He passes by my case in my bondage and distress without noticing it."

my God--who especially might be expected to care for me.

28. known--by thine own observation and reading of Scripture.

heard--from tradition of the fathers.

everlasting, &c.--These attributes of Jehovah ought to inspire His afflicted people with confidence.

no searching of his understanding--therefore thy cause cannot, as thou sayest, escape His notice; though much in His ways is unsearchable, He cannot err (Job 11:7-9). He is never "faint" or "weary" with having the countless wants of His people ever before Him to attend to.

29. Not only does He "not faint" (Is 40:28) but He gives power to them who do faint.

no might ... increaseth strength--a seeming paradox. They "have no might" in themselves; but in Him they have strength, and He "increases" that strength (2Co 12:9).

30. young men--literally, "those selected"; men picked out on account of their youthful vigor for an enterprise.

31. mount up--(2Sa 1:23). Rather, "They shall put forth fresh feathers as eagles" are said to renovate themselves; the parallel clause, "renew their strength," confirms this. The eagle was thought to moult and renew his feathers, and with them his strength, in old age (so the Septuagint, Vulgate, Psa 103:5). However, English Version is favored by the descending climax, mount up--run--walk; in every attitude the praying, waiting child of God is "strong in the Lord" (Psa 84:7; Mi 4:5; He 12:1).

Comfort ye, comfort ye - "The whole of this prophecy," says Kimchi, "belongs to the days of the Messiah."

Double for all her sins "Blessings double to the punishment" - It does not seem reconcilable to our notions of the Divine justice, which always punishes less than our iniquities deserve, to suppose that God had punished the sins of the Jews in double proportion; and it is more agreeable to the tenor of this consolatory message to understand it as a promise of ample recompense for the effects of past displeasure, on the reconciliation of God to his returning people. To express this sense of the passage, which the words of the original will very well bear, it was necessary to add a word or two in the version to supply the elliptical expression of the Hebrew. Compare Isa 61:7; Job 42:10; Zac 9:12. חטאה chattaah signifies punishment for sin, Lam 3:39; Zac 14:19. But Kimchi says, "Double here means the two captivities and emigrations suffered by the Israelites. The first, the Babylonish captivity; the second, that which they now endure." This is not a bad conjecture.

The voice of him that crieth to the wilderness "A voice crieth, In the wilderness" - The idea is taken from the practice of eastern monarchs, who, whenever they entered upon an expedition or took a journey, especially through desert and unpractised countries, sent harbingers before them to prepare all things for their passage, and pioneers to open the passes, to level the ways, and to remove all impediments. The officers appointed to superintend such preparations the Latins call stratores. Ipse (Johannes Baptista) se stratorem vocat Messiae, cujus esset alta et elata voce homines in desertis locis habitantes ad itinera et vias Regi mox venturo sternendas et reficiendas hortari. - Mosheim, Instituta, Majora, p. 96. "He (John the Baptist) calls himself the pioneer of the Messiah, whose business it was with a loud voice to call upon the people dwelling in the deserts to level and prepare the roads by which the King was about to march."

Diodorus's account of the marches of Semiramis into Media and Persia will give us a clear notion of the preparation of the way for a royal expedition: "In her march to Ecbatana she came to the Zarcean mountain, which, extending many furlongs, and being full of craggy precipices and deep hollows, could not be passed without taking a great compass about. Being therefore desirous of leaving an everlasting memorial of herself, as well as of shortening the way, she ordered the precipices to be digged down, and the hollows to be filled up; and at a great expense she made a shorter and more expeditious road, which to this day is called from her the road of Semiramis. Afterward she went into Persia, and all the other countries of Asia subject to her dominion; and wherever she went, she ordered the mountains and precipices to be levelled, raised causeways in the plain country, and at a great expense made the ways passable." - Diod. Sic. lib. ii.

The writer of the apocryphal book called Baruch expresses the same subject by the same images, either taking them from this place of Isaiah, or from the common notions of his countrymen: "For God hath appointed that every high hill, and banks of long continuance, should be cast down, and valleys filled up, to make even the ground, that Israel may go safely in the glory of God." Baruch 5:7.

The Jewish Church, to which John was sent to announce the coming of Messiah, was at that time in a barren and desert condition, unfit, without reformation, for the reception of her King. It was in this desert country, destitute at that time of all religious cultivation, in true piety and good works unfruitful, that John was sent to prepare the way of the Lord by preaching repentance. I have distinguished the parts of the sentence according to the punctuation of the Masoretes, which agrees best both with the literal and the spiritual sense; which the construction and parallelism of the distich in the Hebrew plainly favors, and of which the Greek of the Septuagint and of the evangelists is equally susceptible. John was born in the desert of Judea, and passed his whole life in it, till the time of his being manifested to Israel. He preached in the same desert: it was a mountainous country; however not entirely and properly a desert; for though less cultivated than other parts of Judea, yet it was not uninhabited. Joshua (Jos 15:61, Jos 15:62) reckons six cities in it. We are so prepossessed with the idea of John's living and preaching in the desert, that we are apt to consider this particular scene of his preaching as a very important and essential part of history: whereas I apprehend this circumstance to be no otherwise important, than as giving us a strong idea of the rough character of the man, which was answerable to the place of his education; and as affording a proper emblem of the rude state of the Jewish Church at that time, which was the true wilderness meant by the prophet, in which John was to prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah.

Crooked - The word עקב akob is very generally rendered crooked: but this sense of the word seems not to be supported by any good authority. Ludolphus, Comment. ad Hist. Aethiop. p. 206, says "that in the Ethiopia language it signifies clivus, locus editus:" and so the Syriac Version renders it in this place, ערמא arama: Hebrew, ערמה aramah, tumulus, acervus. Thus the parallelism would be more perfect:" the hilly country shall be made level, and the precipices a smooth plain."

"The salvation of our God" - These words are added here by the Septuagint: το σωτηριον του Θεου, את ישועת אלהינו eth yesuath Eloheynu, as it is in the parallel place, Isa 52:10. The sentence is abrupt without it, the verb wanting its object; and I think it is genuine. Our English translation has supplied the word it, which is equivalent to this addition, from the Septuagint.

This omission in the Hebrew text is ancient, being prior to the Chaldee, Syriac, and Vulgate Versions: but the words stand in all the copies of the Septuagint, and they are acknowledged by Luke, Luk 3:6. The whole of this verse is wanting in one of my oldest MSS.

The voice saint Cry "A voice saith Proclaim" - To understand rightly this passage is a matter of importance; for it seems designed to give us the true key to the remaining part of Isaiah's prophecies, the general subject of which is the restoration of the people and Church of God. The prophet opens the subject with great clearness and elegance: he declares at once God's command to his messengers, (his prophets, as the Chaldee rightly explains it), to comfort his people in captivity, to impart to them the joyful tidings, that their punishment has now satisfied the Divine justice, and the time of reconciliation and favor is at hand. He then introduces a harbinger giving orders to prepare the way for God, leading his people from Babylon, as he did formerly from Egypt, through the wilderness, to remove all obstacles, and to clear the way for their passage.

Thus far nothing more appears to be intended than a return from the Babylonish captivity; but the next words seem to intimate something much greater: - "And the glory of Jehovah shall be revealed;

And all flesh shall see together the salvation of our God."

He then introduces a voice commanding him to make a solemn proclamation. And what is the import of it? that the people - the flesh, is of a vain temporary nature; that all its glory fadeth, and is soon gone; but that the word of God endureth for ever. What is this, but a plain opposition of the flesh to the spirit; of the carnal Israel to the spiritual; of the temporary Mosaic economy to the eternal Christian dispensation? You may be ready to conclude, (the prophet may be disposed to say), by this introduction to my discourse, that my commission is only to comfort you with a promise of the restoration of your religion and polity, of Jerusalem, of the temple, and its services and worship in all its ancient splendor. These are earthly, temporary, shadowy, fading things, which shall soon pass away, and be destroyed for ever; these are not worthy to engage your attention in comparison of the greater blessings, the spiritual redemption, the eternal inheritance, covered under the veil of the former, which I have it in charge to unfold unto you. The law has only a shadow of good things; the substance is the Gospel. I promise you a restoration of the former, which, however, is only for a time, and shall be done away, according to God's original appointment: but under that image I give you a view of the latter, which shall never be done away, but shall endure for ever. This I take to be agreeable to St. Peter's interpretation of this passage of the prophet, quoted by him, 1Pet 1:24, 1Pet 1:25 : "All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth and the flower thereof falleth away; but the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the Gospel is preached unto you." This is the same word of the Lord of which Isaiah speaks, which hath now been preached unto you by the Gospel. The law and the Gospel are frequently opposed to one another by St. Paul, under the images of flesh and spirit: "Having begun in the spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" Gal 3:3. - L.

All the Godliness thereof - "All its glory" - For חסדו chasdo read חדו chadu; the Septuagint and Vulgate, and 1Pet 1:24.

The grass withereth - The whole of this verse is wanting in three of Kennicott's and five of De Rossi's MSS., and in a very correct and ancient MS. of my own, and also in the Septuagint and Arabic.

Surely the people "Verily this people" - So the Syriac; who perhaps read העם הזה haam hazzeh.

Because the spirit of the Lord "When the wind of Jehovah" - רוח יהוה ruach Jehovah, a wind of Jehovah, is a Hebraism, meaning no more than a strong wind. It is well known that a hot wind in the east destroys every green thing. Compare Psa 103:16. Two MSS. omit the word יהוה Yehovah, Jehovah.

O Zion, that bringest good tidings "O daughter, that bringest glad tidings to Zion" - That the true construction of the sentence is this, which makes Zion the receiver, not the publisher, of the glad tidings, which latter has been the most prevailing interpretation, will, I think, very clearly appear, if we rightly consider the image itself, and the custom and common practice from which it is taken. I have added the word daughter to express the feminine gender of the Hebrew participle, which I know not how to do otherwise in our language; and this is absolutely necessary in order to ascertain the image. For the office of announcing and celebrating such glad tidings as are here spoken of, belongs peculiarly to the women. On occasion of any great public success, a signal victory, or any other joyful event, it was usual for the women to gather together, and with music, dances, and songs, to publish and celebrate the happy news. Thus after the passage of the Red Sea, Miriam, and all the women, with timbrels in their hands, formed a chorus, and joined the men in their triumphant song, dancing, and throwing in alternately the refrain or burden of the song: - "Sing ye to Jehovah, for he is greatly exalted;

The horse and his rider hath he cast into the sea." Exo 15:20, Exo 15:21.

So Jephthah's daughter collected a chorus or virgins, and with dances and songs came out to meet her father, and to celebrate his victory, Jdg 11:34. After David's conquest of Goliath, "all the women came out of the cities of Israel singing and dancing to meet Saul, with tabrets, with joy, and with instruments of music;" and, forming themselves into two choruses, they sang alternately: - "Saul has slain his thousands:

And David his ten thousands." 1Sam 18:6, 1Sam 18:7.

And this gives us the true sense of a passage in the sixty-eighth Psalm, which has frequently been misunderstood: - "Jehovah gave the word, (that is, the joyful news),

The women, who published the glad tidings, were a great company;

The kings of mighty armies did flee, did flee:

And even the matron, who stayed at home, shared the spoil."

The word signifying the publishers of glad tidings is the same, and expressed in the same form by the feminine participle, as in this place, and the last distich is the song which they sang. So in this place, Jehovah having given the word by his prophet, the joyful tidings of the restoration of Zion, and of God's returning to Jerusalem, (see Isa 52:8), the women are exhorted by the prophet to publish the joyful news with a loud voice from eminences, whence they might best be heard all over the country; and the matter and burden of their song was to be, "Behold your God!" See on Psa 68:11 (note).

His reward is with him, and his work before him. "His reward is with him, and the recompense of his work before him" - That is, the reward and the recompense which he bestows, and which he will pay to his faithful servants; this he has ready at hand with him, and holds it out before him, to encourage those who trust in him and wait for him.

Shall gently lead those that are with young "The nursing ewes shall he gently lead" - A beautiful image, expressing, with the utmost propriety as well as elegance, the tender attention of the shepherd to his flock. That the greatest care in driving the cattle in regard to the dams and their young was necessary, appears clearly from Jacob's apology to his brother Esau, Gen 33:13 : "The flocks and the herds giving suck to their young are with me; and if they should be overdriven, all the flock will die." Which is set in a still stronger light by the following remark of Sir John Chardin: "Their flocks," says he, speaking of those who now live in the east after the patriarchal manner, "feed down the places of their encampments so quick, by the great numbers that they have, that they are obliged to remove them too often, which is very destructive to their flocks, on account of the young ones, who have not strength enough to follow." Harmer's Observ. i., p. 126.

And Lebanon is not sufficient - The image is beautiful and uncommon. It has been imitated by an apocryphal writer, who however comes far short of the original: - "For all sacrifice is too little for a sweet savor unto thee:

And all the fat is not sufficient for thy burnt-offering."

Judith 16:16.

Does not the prophet mean here that all the burnt-offerings and sacrifices that could be offered were insufficient to atone for sin? That the nations were as nothing before him, not merely because of his immensity, but because of their insufficiency to make any atonement by their oblations for the iniquities which they had committed? Therefore the Redeemer was to come to Zion, etc.

And casteth silver chains "And forgeth for it chains of silver" - For צורף tsoreph, the participle, twenty-seven MSS., five ancient, and three editions, read צרף tsaraph, pret. third person.

Chooseth a tree that will not rot - For what? To make a god out of it! The rich we find made theirs of gold and silver; the poor man was obliged to put up with a wooden god! From the words "he that hath no oblation chooseth a tree," we may learn that the gold and silver necessary to make the graven image was first dedicated, and then formed into a god! How stupid is idolatry! Strange that these people did not perceive that there could be no help in these molten and wooden idols!

Have ye not known - On this verse Kimchi has a very interesting comment, an extract of which I subjoin. "The whole world may be considered as a house built up; heaven its roof; the stars its lamps; and the fruits of the earth its table spread. The Master of the house is God, blessed for ever; and man is the steward into whose hand all the business of the house is given. If he always consider in his heart that the Master of the house is continually over him, and that he keeps his eye upon his work, and if in consequence he acts wisely, he shall find favor in the eyes of the Master of the house. But if he find wickedness in the house, then will he remove him מן פקידתו min pekidutho, 'from his stewardship.' The foolish steward does not think of this; for as his eyes do not see the Master of the house, he saith in his heart, 'I will eat and drink what I find in this house, and will take my pleasure in it; nor shall I be careful whether there be a master over this house or not.' When the Lord of the house marks this, he comes and expels him from the house speedily, and with great anger; therefore it is said, Isa 40:23, He bringeth the princes to nothing." It seems that this parable had been long in use among the Jews, as our blessed Lord alludes to it in his parable of the unjust steward. Or did the rabbin, finding it to his purpose, steal the parable from the Gospel? In both places it has great and peculiar beauties.

Have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth "Have ye not understood it from the foundations of the earth?" - The true reading seems to be ממוסדות mimmosedoth, to answer to מראש merosh in the foregoing line. It follows a word ending with מ mem, and out of three mems concurring, it was an easy mistake to drop the middle one.

As a curtain "As a thin veil" - "It is usual in the summer season, and upon all occasions when a large company is to be received, to have the court sheltered from heat or inclemency of the weather by a velum, umbrella, or veil, as I shall call it; which being expanded on ropes from one side of the parapet wall to the other, may be folded or unfolded at pleasure. The psalmist seems to allude to some covering of this kind in that beautiful expression of spreading out the heavens like a curtain." - Shaw's Travels, p. 274.

And he shall also blow upon them "And if he but blow upon them" - The Septuagint, Syriac, Vulgate, and MS. Bodl., with another, have גם gam, only, without the conjunction ו vau, and.

Left up your eyes on high - The rabbins say, He who is capable of meditating on the revolutions of the heavenly bodies, and does not meditate on them, is not worthy to have his name mentioned among men.

There is no searching of his understanding "And that his understanding is unsearchable" - Twenty-four MSS., two editions, the Septuagint and Vulgate, read ואין veein, with the conjunction ו vau.

They shall mount zap with wings as eagles "They shall put forth fresh feathers like the moulting eagle" - It has been a common and popular opinion that the eagle lives and retains his vigor to a great age; and that, beyond the common lot of other birds, he moults in his old age, and renews his feathers, and with them his youth. "Thou shalt renew thy youth like the eagle, "says the psalmist, Psa 103:5; on which place St. Ambrose notes, Aquila longam aetatem ducit, dum, vetustis plumis fatiscentibus, nova pennarum successione juvenescit: "The eagle lives to a very advanced age; and in moulting his youth is renewed with his new feathers." Phile, De Animalibus, treating of the eagle, and addressing himself to the emperor Michael Palaeologus junior, raises his compliment upon the same notion: - Τουτου συ, βασιλευ, τον πολυν ζωοις βιον, Αει νεουργων, και κρατυνων την φυσιν. "Long may'st thou live, O king; still like the eagle

Renew thy youth, and still retain thy vigor."

To this many fabulous and absurd circumstances are added by several ancient writers and commentators on Scripture; see Bochart, Hieroz. 2 ii. 1. Rabbi Saadias says, Every tenth year the eagle flies near the sun; and when not able any longer to bear the burning heat, she falls down into the sea, and soon loses her feathers, and thus renews her vigor. This she does every tenth year till the hundredth, when, after she has ascended near the sun, and fallen into the sea, she rises no more. How much proof do such stories require! Whether the notion of the eagle's renewing his youth is in any degree well founded or not, I need not inquire; it is enough for a poet, whether profane or sacred, to have the authority of popular opinion to support an image introduced for illustration or ornament. - L

Ye - Ye prophets and ministers.

Warfare - The time of her captivity, and misery. Double - Not twice as much as her sins deserved, but abundantly enough to answer God's design in this chastisement, which was to humble and reform them, and to warn others by their example.

The voice - An abrupt speech. Methinks I hear a voice. Wilderness - This immediately relates to the deliverance of the Jews out of Babylon, and smoothing their passage from thence to Judea, which lay through a great wilderness; but principally to their redemption by the Messiah, whose coming was ushered in by the cry of John the baptist, in the wilderness. Prepare ye the way - You to whom this work belongs. He alludes to the custom of princes who send pioneers before them to prepare the way through which they are to pass. The meaning is, God shall by his spirit so dispose mens hearts, and by his providence so order the affairs of the world, as to make way for the accomplishment of his promise. This was eminently fulfilled, when Christ, who was, and is God, blessed for ever, came into the world in a visible manner.

Cry - God speaks unto his ministers. He - The prophet. All flesh - The prophet having foretold glorious things, confirms the certainty of them, by representing the vast difference between the nature, and word, and work of men and of God. All that men are or have, yea, their highest accomplishments, are but like the grass of the field, weak and vanishing, soon nipt and brought to nothing; but God's word is like himself, immutable and irresistible: and therefore as the mouth of the Lord, and not of man, hath spoken these things, so doubt not but they shall be fulfilled.

Zion - Zion or Jerusalem is the publisher, and the cities of Judah the hearers. Get up - That thy voice may be better heard. Afraid - Lest thou shouldest be found a false prophet. Say - To all my people in the several places of their abode. Behold - Take notice of this wonderful work, and glorious appearance of your God.

His arm - He shall need no succours, for his own power shall be sufficient to govern his people, and to destroy his adversaries. His reward - He comes furnished with recompences as well of blessings for his friends, as of vengeance for his enemies. His work - He carries on his work effectually: for that is said in scripture to be before a man which is in his power.

Who hath - Who can do this but God? And this discourse of God's infinite power and wisdom, is added to give them the greater assurance, that God was able to do the wonderful things, he had promised.

Who - Who did God either need or take to advise him in any of his works, either of creation or the government of the world.

Are counted - By him, and in comparison of him. The dust - Which accidentally cleaves to the balance, but makes no alteration in the weight. The isles - Those numerous and vast countries, to which they went from Judea by sea, which are commonly called isles.

Lebanon - If men were to offer a sacrifice agreeable to his infinite excellency, the whole forest of Lebanon could not afford either a sufficient number of beasts to be sacrificed: or, a sufficient quantity of wood to consume the sacrifice.

To whom - This is a proper inference from the foregoing discourse of God's infinite greatness; from whence he takes occasion to shew both the folly of those that make mean and visible representations of God, and the utter inability of men or idols to give any opposition to God.

Melteth - He melts metal into a mould, which afterwards is graven or carved to make it more exact.

He - That can hardly procure money to buy a sacrifice. Chuseth - He is so mad upon his idols, that he will find money to procure the choicest materials, and the best artist to make his idol. An image - Which after all this cost, cannot stir one step out of its place to give you any help.

Known - God to be the only true God, the maker and governor of the world.

Sitteth - Far above this round earth, even in the highest heavens; from whence he looketh down upon the earth, where men appear to him like grasshoppers. As here we have the circle of the earth, so elsewhere we read of the circle of heaven, Job 22:14, and of the circle of the deep, or sea, Prov 8:27, because the form of the heaven, and earth and sea is circular. Spreadeth - For the benefit of the earth and of mankind, that all parts might partake of its comfortable influences.

Sown - They shall take no root, for planting and sowing are in order to taking root. They shall not continue and flourish, as they have vainly imagined, but shall be rooted up and perish.

Bringeth - That at first brought them out of nothing, and from day to day brings them forth, making them to rise and set in their appointed times. Faileth - Either to appear when he calls them; or to do the work to which he sends them.

What - Why dost thou give way to such jealousies concerning thy God, of whose infinite power and wisdom, and goodness, there are such evident demonstrations. Is hid - He takes no notice of my prayers and tears, and sufferings, but suffers mine enemies to abuse me at their pleasure. This complaint is uttered in the name of the people, being prophetically supposed to be in captivity. Judgment - My cause. God has neglected to plead my cause, and to give judgment for me against mine enemies.

The youths - The youngest and strongest men, left to themselves.

Wait - That rely upon him. Renew - Shall grow stronger and stronger.

1. COmfort ye, comfort ye my people , saith your God.

Ye Prophets and Ministers of the Lord, which now are: Or hereafter shall be, deliver this comfortable message from me to my People, that they may not sink under their burdens.

2 Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her , that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned : for she hath received of the LORDS hand double for all her sins.

Proclaim it in my name.

The time of her servitude, and captivity, and misery.

I am reconciled to her; I will not impute sin to her, to punish her any longer for it.

Not twice as much as her sins deserved, for she her self confessed the contrary, Ezra 9. 1[illegible: 1+ letters] ▪ Lament. 3. 22. but abundantly enough to answer Gods design in this chastilement, which was to humble and reform them, and to warn others by their example. Double is oft put for abundantly, as Isa. 61. 7. Ier. 16. 18. and 17. 18. God here speaks of himself after the manner of men, and compareth himself to a tender-hearted Father, who when he hath corrected his Child for his misdemeanour relenteth and repenteth of his severity, and casteth his Rod away.

Marginal references: Heb. to the heart.; Or, appointed time.; Jer. 16. 18. Lam. 1. 12. Dan. 9. 12.

3 The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness , Prepare ye the way of the LORD , make straight in the desert a high way for our God.

An abrupt and imperfect speech, such as there are many in the Hebrew Language. Methinks I hear a voice▪ Or, a voice shall be heard.

Which words declare the place either. 1. Where the cry was made: Or, 2. Where the way was to be prepared, as it is expressed in the following clause, which is added to explain this. And such places being commonly path-less, and many wayes incommodious to passengers, it was the more necessary to prepare a way there. But both come to one thing, for the cry was to be in that place which was to be prepared. This place seems to be understood immediately of the deliverance of the Iews out of Babylon, and of smoothing their passage from thence to Iudea, which lay through a great Wilderness; but ultimately and principally concerning their Redem[illegible: 1+ letters]on by the Messiah, whose coming is ushered in by the Cry [illegible: 1 word] the Baptist, who did both cry and prepare the way in the Wilderness, as we read, Mat. 3. 1, &c. Where this Text is directly expounded of him. But withal the terms of Wilderness and Desert, seem to be here chiefly used in a metaphorical sence, to express the desolate and forlorn condition of the Jewish Nation, and especially of the Gentile-world, when Christ came to redeem them▪ for so these words are frequently used in prophetical writings, as hath been noted in divers places.

You to whom this work belongs. He alludes to the custom of Princes who send Pioneers before them to prepare the way through which they intend to pass. The meaning is onely this, That God shall by his Spirit so dispose mens hearts, and by his providence so order the Empires and affairs of the World, as to make way for the accomplishment of this promise.

For the Lord as it is expounded in the next clause, that the Lord may wal[illegible: 1+ letters] in it: Which though it may be understood of their coming out of Babylon, when God might in some sort be said to march in the head of them, conducting and preserving them, yet it was much more evidently and eminently fulfilled, when Christ who was and is God blessed for ever, came into the World in a visible manner.

Either direct in opposition to crooked, or even and level in opposition to the Mountains and Valleys mentioned in the next verse.

Marginal references: Mal. 3. 1. Mat. 3. 3. Mark. 1. 3. Luke 3. 4. John 1. 23.

4. Every Valley shall be exalted, and every Mountain and Hill shall be brought low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain .

This is only a more particular explication of that which was generally expressed ver. 3. The sence is, All obstructions shall be removed, and the way made in all respects convenient and easy for the passenger.

Marginal references: Or, a straight place.; Or, a plain place.

5. And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed , and all flesh , shall see it together; for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it .

So it was in some sort, when God brought them out of Babylon, which was a glorious work of God, but far more properly and eminently, when Christ who was the glorious God, was manifested in the flesh, and gave much clearer and fuller discoveries of Gods glorious wisdom, and holiness, and goodness, and other divine perfections than ever yet had been imparted to mankind and to the Church.

All Nations, both Iewes and Gentiles.

Though this may seem incredible, yet God is able to accomplish it.

6. The voice said , Cry. And he said , What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodness thereof is as the flower of the field .

God speakes unto his Prophets or Ministers.

The Prophet desires to know Gods mind, and his message.

The Prophet having foretold glorious and wonderful things, which God had declared and determined to do, and suspecting that men [illegible: 1 word] hardly believe them; he confirmeth their faith, and the certainty of the thing in this, and the two next verses, by representing to their minds the vast difference between the nature, and word, and work of men and of God. All that men are or have▪ yea their highest accomplishments, are but like the grass or flower of the field, weak and vanishing, soon nipt and brought to nothing; but Gods word is like himself, Immutable and Irresistible: and therefore as the mouth of the Lord, and not of man, hath spoken these things, as was said ver. 5. so doubt not but they shall be fulfilled.

Marginal references: Job. 14. 2. Psal. 102. 11. and 103. 15. Jam. 1. 10. 1 Pet. 1. 24.

7. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; because the Spirit of the LORD bloweth upon it▪ surely the People is grass.

Or, The breath, &c. as this word is rendred, Psal. 147. 18. the wind as it frequently signifies, which hath this effect upon grass and flowers, Psal. 103. 16. Iam. 1. 11.

The same which he called Flesh, and said they were Grass, ver. 6. Which that he might prove, in this verse he first declares the frail nature of Grass and Flowers, and then he applies this to the People: Or, this People, the Iewes no less than the Gentiles; for here is an Article in the Hebrew Text, which is frequently emphatical and restrictive.

Marginal references: Psal. 147. 18. Hos. 13. 15.

8. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand for ever .

Whatsoever God hath said shall infallibly come to pass.

Marginal references: John 12. 34. 1 Pet. 1. 25.

9. O Zion that bringest good tidings , get thee up into the high mountain : O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid : say unto the Cities of Judah , Behold your God .

O Zion, to whom the glad tidings of the coming of Christ into the World, and of the Salvation of Mankind by him were first published by Christ and his Apostles, and by whom they were published to all Nations. But the words are otherwise rendred in the margent, and by others, O thou (whosoever thou art, Prophet or Apostle) that bringest good tidings to Zion. So Sion is not the deliverer but the receiver of these good tidings, as she is in the Parallel place, Isa. 52. 7. But our translation seems to agree better with the Hebrew Text, in which the particle, unto, is not here expressed, as it is in the latter part of the verse, by comparing which part with the former, it seems most probable, that Zion or Ierusalem is the Speaker or Publisher, and the Cityes of Iudah the hearers.

That thy voice may be better heard, as appears from the next branch of the verse. See Iudg. 9. 7. 1 Sam. 26. 13, 14.

Lest thou shouldest be found a false Prophet; for it shall certainly be fulfilled.

To all my People in the several places of their abode, whether Cityes or Countries. Onely he names Cityes to intimate, that they also, though they should be destroyed, yet should afterward be rebuilt, and inhabited again.

Take notice of this wonderful Work, and glorious appearance of your God, who will be visibly[illegible: 1+ letters] present with you, so that men may point at him and say, Behold here he is.

Marginal references: Or, O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion.; ‖ Or, O thou that tellest good tidings to Ierusalem.

10. Behold the Lord GOD will come with strong hand , and his arms shall rule for him ; behold, his reward is with him , and his work before him .

With invincible strength conquering all his enemies. The word Hand or Arm, may very well be understood out of the following clause.

He shall need no succours, for his own power shall be sufficient to govern his People, and to destroy his Adversaries.

He comes furnished with recompences as well of Mercy and Blessings for his friends and followers, as of Justice and Vengeance for his enemies.

He carrieth on his work or design effectually, so as none can hinder him: for that is said in Scripture to be before a man which is in his Power, as Gen. 20. 15. and 24. 51. &c. Or Work is here put for the reward of the Work▪ as it is, Isa. 49. 4. and 65. 7. and elsewhere. And so the same thing is repeated in other words, as is very usual.

Marginal references: Or, against the strong.; Chap. 62. 11.; Or, recompence for his work.

11. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd, he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosome, and shall gently lead those that are with young .

He shall perform all the Offices of a tender and faithful Shepherd towards his People, carrying himself with great Wisdome and Condescension, and Compassion to every one of them according to their several Capacities and Infirmities.

Marginal references: Chap. 49. 10. Ezek. 34. 23. John 10. 11.; Or, that give suck.

12. Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand ? and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the Mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance!

i. e. Who can measure them? for indicative Verbs in the Hebrew Language are oft taken potentially; who can do this and the following things but God? And this discourse of Gods infinite Power and Wisdom, is here conveniently added to give them the greater assurance, that God was able▪ as he had declared himself willing, to do these great and wonderful things which he had promised; and that neither men nor false Gods were able to hinder him in it. God is here compared to a mighty Giant, supposed to be so big that he can take up, and hold all the waters of the Sea and Rivers of the whole World in one hand, and span the Heavens, and then take up and weigh the whole Earth with the other hand.

Marginal references: Heb. a tierce.

13. Who hath directed the spirit of the Lord or being his counsellour hath taught him ?

Who did God either need or take to advise him in any of his Work, either of Creation or the Government of the World? Were they not all the effects of his own sole infinite Wisdom? Therefore though all the Nations of the World contrive and conspire against him, and against this Work of his, as indeed they will do, yet his own counsel shall confound all their devices, and carry on his Work in spight of them.

Marginal references: Job 21. 2[illegible: 1+ letters]. & 36. 22, 23. Rom. 11. 34. 1 Cor. 2. 16.; Heb. weighed Prov. 16. 1.; Heb. man of his counsel.

14. With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment , and taught him knowledg, and shewed to him the way of understanding?

How to walk and manage all his Affairs with good Judgment and Discretion.

Marginal references: Heb. made him understand.; Heb. understandings.

15. Behold, the nations , are as a drop of a bucket , and are counted , as the small dust of the balance ; behold, he taketh up the Isles as a very little thing.

All the Nations of the World;

Compared with all the Water in the Bucket wherein are innumerable drops▪ such are they if compared with God.

By him, and in comparison of him.

Which accidently cleaves to the Ballance, but make no alteration in the weight.

Those numerous and vast Countries to which they went from Iudaea by Sea, which are commonly called Isles, as hath been oft observed.

16. And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt-offering .

And although he is pleased to accept of poor and small Sacrifices from his People, yet if men were to offer a Sacrifice agreeable to his infinite excellency, the whole Forest of Lebanon could not afford either a sufficient number of Beasts to be sacrificed: Or, a sufficient quantity of Wood to consume the Sacrifice.

17. All nations before him are as nothing, and they are counted to him less than nothing , and vanity.

Either in his eyes: Or, being set against him, as this Hebrew word properly and most usually signifies.

Either in his Judgment: Or, in comparison of him.

Less than a thing of nought or of no account or worth: Or, as others render it, For nothing.

Marginal references: Dan. 4. 35.

18. To whom then will ye liken God ? or what likeness will ye compare unto him.

This is a proper inference from the foregoing discourse of Gods immense and infinite greatness; from whence he taketh occasion to shew both the folly of those that make mean and visible representations of God, as not the Gentiles onely but even some of the Iews did; and the utter inability of Men or Idols to give any opposition to God in the doing of these great Works. And this discourse of the madness of Idolaters prosecuted both here, and in the following Chapter was designed by God, as a necessary antidote whereby the Iews might be preserved from the contagion of Idolatry, to which God saw they now had strong inclinations, and would have many and great temptations when they were in Captivity.

Marginal references: Chap. 46. 5. Act. 17. 29.

19. The workman melteth a graven image , and the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold , and casteth silver chains .

He melteth some base Metal into a mould, which giveth it the form of an Image, which afterwards is graven or carved to make it more exact and amiable. Thus the Image oweth all its excellency to the Earth for the matter of it, and to the art of man for the form or fashion of it.

Beaten out into Leaves or Plates.

Either for Ornaments: Or, rather for use, to fasten it to a Wall or Pillar, least it should fall down, and be broken in peices. Which is spoken in way of scorn and derisson of such ridiculous deities as needed such supports.

Marginal references: Chap. 41. 7. & 44. 12. Jer. 10. 3.

20. He that is so impoverished that he hath no oblation , chooseth a tree that will not rot; he seeketh unto him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image that shall not be removed .

That he can hardly procure Mony sufficient to buy the meanest Sacrifice for his God.

He is so mad upon his Idols, that he will one way or other find mony to procure the choicest materials, and the help of the best Artist to make his Idol.

Which after all this cost and art, cannot stir one step out of its place to give you any help.

Marginal references: Heb. is poor of oblation.; Chap. 41. 7.

21. Have ye not known ? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning ? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth?

To wit, God to be the onely true God, the Maker and Governour of the World, and all its Inhabitants: how can you be ignorant of so evident a truth? He adresseth his speech to the Idolatrous Gentiles.

To wit, of the World, as the next clause explains it: Were not these infinite perfections of God manifestly discovered to all mankind by the Creation of the World?

22. It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth , and the inhabitants thereof are as grashoppers , that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in :

As a Judge or Governour upon his Throne:

Or, above the Circle, &c. far above this round Earth, ever in the highest Heavens; from whence he looketh down upon the Earth, where men appear to him like Grashoppers. He alludes to one that looks down upon the Earth below him from some very high place. As here we have the Circle of the Earth, so elsewhere we read of the Circle of Heaven, Ioh 22. 14. and of the Circle of the Deep, or Sea, Prov. 8. 27. because the form of the Heaven, and Earth, and Sea is circular or round, as is evident both from Sense, and from the Principles of Philosophy.

Small and Contemptible in his sight. Compare Numb. 13. 33.

For the benefit of the Earth and of Mankind, that all parts might partake of its comfortable influences. See on Iob. 9. 8. Psal. 104. 2.

Marginal references: Or, him that sitteth▪ &c.; Job 9. 8. Psal. 104. 2. Chap, 44. 24. Jer. 10. 12.

23. That bringeth the princes to nothing , he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity.

That can at his pleasure destroy all the great Potentates of the World.

Marginal references: Job 12. 21. Psal. 107. 40.

24. Yea, they shall not be planted, yea, they shall not be sown , yea, their stock shall not take root in the earth; and he shall also blow upon them , and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble.

The Princes and Judges last mentioned.

They shall take no root, as it follows, for Planting and Sowing are in order to taking root, and are necessary to it. They shall not continue and flourish, as they have vainly imagined, but shall be rooted up and perish, as is declared in the rest of the verse.

Blast them, as a vehement eastwind doth Plants.

25 To whom then will ye liken me , or shall I be equal? saith the holy One.

He repeateth what he said, ver. 18. that he might oblige them to the more serious and frequent consideration of the absurdity of the Idolatry.

26 Lift up your eyes on high , and behold who, hath created these things , that bringeth out their host by number , he calleth them all by names , by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power , not one faileth .

To the high and starry Heaven, as appears from the following words.

Which you see on High, the Host of Heaven as it follows.

That at first brought them out of nothing, and from day to day brings them forth, making them to rise and set in their appointed and fixed times.

As a General brings forth his Army into the Field, and there musters them.

As a Master calleth all the Members of his Family.

Which work is a certain and evident proof of Gods infinite power▪

Either to appear when he calleth them; or to do[illegible: 1+ letters] work to which he sends them.

Marginal references: Psal. 147. 4.

27 Why sayst thou , O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God ?

In thy heart, why dost thou give way to such jealousies concerning thy God, of whose infinite Power and Wisdom, and Goodness, there are such evident demonstrations given to all mankind, and to thee in a singular manner?

The course and condition of my Life. He takes no notice of my Prayers and Tears, and Sufferings for his Name, but suffers my Enemies to abuse me at their pleasure, and doth not attempt to rescue me out of their hands. This complaint is uttered in the name of the People being prophetically supposed to be in Captivity.

Either 1. My Punishment: Or, rather 2. My Cause, as this word is most commonly used. God hath neglected to plead my Cause, and to give Judgment for me against mine enemies, as he hath formerly done.

God hath dismissed it, and left it and me in the hands of mine Enemies, and now our case is so desperate that God cannot help us: for which reason they compared themselves to dry Bones lying in the Grave, Ezek. 37.

28 Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the creator of the ends of the earth fainteth not, neither is weary ? there is no searching of his understanding .

Of all the Earth and the inhabitants thereof, from one end to another. He seems to mention the ends or utmost bounds, because they must seem to be more out of the reach and care of Gods providence, as being most remote from Ierusalem, the only place of Gods solemn and publick Worship in the World, and being then thought to [illegible: 1+ letters]inhabited. The argument is clear and strong: God who made all, even the most desolate and barbarous parts of the Earth, and consequently takes care of them, will not neglect his own Land and People.

He is not by age or hard labour become weak and unable to help his People, as men are apt to be.

His Counsels by which he governeth all the World, and in a most particular manner thine affaires are far above the reach of thy understanding: and therefore thou dost ignorantly and foolishly in passing so rash a censure upon the Wayes and Works of the infinitely Wise God.

Marginal references: Psal. 147. 5.

29 He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might he encreaseth strength .

He hath strength enough not onely for himself but for all, even the weakest of his creatures, whom he can easily strengthen to bear all their burdens, and to vanquish all their oppressors.

30 Even the youths shall faint, and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall.

The youngest and strongest men, left to themselves or without Gods help, or which do not wait upon God; which is easily understood from the opposition in the following verse.

31 But they that wait upon the LORD , shall renew their strength , they shall mount up with wings as eagles , they shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint .

That rely upon him for strength to bear their burdens, and for deliverance from them in due time.

Shall grow stronger and stronger in Faith and Patience, and Fortitude, whereby they shall be more than Conquerors over all their Enemies and Adversities.

Which flyes most strongly and swiftly and high out of the reach of all danger.

They shall be enabled to run or walk in their way as they please, without any weariness.

Marginal references: Heb. change.

Second Half of the Collection - Isaiah 40-66

The first half consisted of seven parts; the second consists of three. The trilogical arrangement of this cycle of prophecies has hardly been disputed by any one, since Rückert pointed it out in his Translation of the Hebrew Prophets (1831). And it is equally certain that each part consists of 3 x 3 addresses. The division of the chapters furnishes an unintentional proof of this, though the true commencement is not always indicated. The first part embraces the following nine addresses: chapters 40; 41, Isaiah 42:1-43:13; 43:14-44:5; 44:6-23; 44:24-45:25; Isa 46:1-13; Isa 47:1-15; 48. The second part includes the following nine: chapters 49; Isa 50:1-11; 51; Isa 52:1-12; 52:13-53:12; 54; Isa 55:1-13; Isa 56:1-8; 56:9-57:21. The third part the following nine: Isa 58:1-14; 59; 60; Isa 61:1-11; Isa 62:1-12; Isa 63:1-6; 63:7-64:12; 65; 66. It is only in the middle of the first part that the division is at all questionable. In the other two it is hardly possible to err. The theme of the whole is the comforting announcement of the approaching deliverance, and its attendant summons to repentance. For the deliverance itself was for the Israel, which remained true to the confession of Jehovah in the midst of affliction and while redemption was delayed, and not for the rebellious, who denied Jehovah in word and deed, and thus placed themselves on the level of the heathen. “There is no peace, saith Jehovah, for the wicked:” with these words does the first part of the twenty-seven addresses close in Isa 48:22. The second closes in Isa 57:21 in a more excited and fuller tone: “There is no peace, saith my God, for the wicked.” And at the close of the third part (Isa 66:24) the prophet drops this form of refrain, and declares the miserable end of the wicked in deeply pathetic though horrifying terms: “Their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh;” just as, at the close of the fifth book of the Psalms, the shorter form of berâkhâh (blessing) is dropt, and an entire psalm, the Hallelujah (Ps), takes its place.

The three parts, which are thus marked off by the prophet himself, are only variations of the one theme common to them all. At the same time, each has its own leading thought, and its own special key-note, which is struck in the very first words. In each of the three parts, also, a different antithesis stands in the foreground: viz., in the first part, chapters 40-48, the contrast between Jehovah and the idols, and between Israel and the heathen; in the second part, chapters 49-57, the contrast between the present suffering of the Servant of Jehovah and His future glory; in the third part, chapters 58-66, the contrast observable in the heart of Israel itself, between the hypocrites, the depraved, the rebellious, on the one side, and the faithful, the mourning, the persecuted, on the other. The first part sets forth the deliverance from Babylon, in which the prophecy of Jehovah is fulfilled, to the shame ad overthrow of the idols and their worshippers; the second part, the way of the Servant of Jehovah through deep humiliation to exaltation and glory, which is at the same time the exaltation of Israel to the height of its world-wide calling; the third part, the indispensable conditions of participation in the future redemption and glory. There is some truth in Hahn’s opinion, that the distinctive characteristics of the three separate parts are exhibited in the three clauses of Isa 40:2 : “that her distress is ended, that her debt is paid, that she has received (according to his explanation, 'will receive') double for all her sins.” For the central point of the first part is really the termination of the Babylonian distress; that of the second, the expiation of guilt by the self-sacrifice of the Servant of Jehovah; and that of the third, the assurance that the sufferings will be followed by “a far more exceeding weight of glory.” The promise rises higher and higher in the circular movements of the 3 x 9 addresses, until at length it reaches its zenith in chapters 65 and 66, and links time and eternity together.

So far as the language is concerned, there is nothing more finished or more elevated in the whole of the Old Testament than this trilogy of addresses by Isaiah. In chapters 1-39 of the collection, the prophet’s language is generally more compressed, chiselled (lapidarisch), plastic, although even there his style passes through all varieties of colour. But here in chapters 40-66, where he no longer has his foot upon the soil of his own time, but is transported into the far distant future, as into his own home, even the language retains an ideal and, so to speak, ethereal character. It has grown into a broad, pellucid, shining stream, which floats us over as it were into the world beyond, upon majestic yet gentle and translucent waves. There are only two passages in which it becomes more harsh, turbid, and ponderous, viz., Isa 53:1-12 and Isaiah 56:9-57:11 a. In the former it is the emotion of sorrow which throws its shadow upon it; in the latter, the emotion of wrath. And in every other instance in which it changes, we may detect at once the influence of the object and of the emotion. In Isa 63:7 the prophet strikes the note of the liturgical tephillâh; in Isaiah 63:19 b-64:4 it is sadness which chokes the stream of words; in Isa 64:5 you year, as in Jer 3:25, the key-note of the liturgical vidduy, or confessional prayer.

And when we turn to the contents of his trilogy, it is more incomparable still. It commences with a prophecy, which gave to John the Baptist the great theme of his preaching. It closes with the prediction of the creation of a new heaven and new earth, beyond which even the last page of the New Testament Apocalypse cannot go. And in the centre (Isaiah 52:13-53:12) the sufferings and exaltation of Christ are proclaimed as clearly, as if the prophet had stood beneath the cross itself, and had seen the Risen Saviour. He is transported to the very commencement of the New Testament times, and begins just like the New Testament evangelists. He afterwards describes the death and resurrection of Christ as completed events, with all the clearness of a Pauline discourse. And lastly, he clings to the heavenly world beyond, like John in the Apocalypse. Yet the Old Testament limits are not disturbed; but within those limits, evangelist, apostle, and apocalyptist are all condensed into one. Throughout the whole of these addresses we never meet with a strictly Messianic prophecy; and yet they have more christological depth than all the Messianic prophecies taken together. The bright picture of the coming King, which is met with in the earlier Messianic prophecies, undergoes a metamorphosis here, out of which it issues enriched by many essential elements, viz., those of the two status, the mors vicaria, and the munus triplex. The dark typical background of suffering, which the mournful Davidic psalms give to the figure of the Messiah, becomes here for the first time an object of direct prediction. The place of the Son of David, who is only a King, is now take by the Servant of Jehovah, who is Prophet and Priest by virtue of His self-sacrifice, and King as well; the Saviour of Israel and of the Gentiles, persecuted even to death by His own nation, but exalted by God to be both Priest and King. So rich and profound a legacy did Isaiah leave to the church of the captivity, and to the church of the future also, yea, even to the New Jerusalem upon the new earth. Hengstenberg has very properly compared these prophecies of Isaiah to the Deuteronomic “last words” of Moses in the steppes of Moab, and to the last words of the Lord Jesus, within the circle of His own disciples, as reported by John. It is a thoroughly esoteric book, left to the church for future interpretation. To none of the Old Testament prophets who followed him was the ability given perfectly to open the book. Nothing but the coming of the Servant of Jehovah in the person of Jesus Christ could break all the seven seals. But was Isaiah really the author of this book of consolation? Modern criticism visits all who dare to assert this with the double ban of want of science and want of conscience. It regards Isaiah’s authorship as being quite as impossible as any miracle in the sphere of nature, of history, or of the spirit. No prophecies find any favour in its eyes, but such as can be naturally explained. It knows exactly how far a prophet can see, and where he must stand, in order to see so far. But we are not tempted at all to purchase such omniscience at the price of the supernatural. We believe in the supernatural reality of prophecy, simply because history furnishes indisputable proofs of it, and because a supernatural interposition on the part of God in both the inner and outer life of man takes place even at the present day, and can be readily put to the test. But this interposition varies greatly both in degree and kind; and even in the far-sight of the prophets there were the greatest diversities, according to the measure of their charisma. It is quite possible, therefore, that Isaiah may have foreseen the calamities of the Babylonian age and the deliverance that followed “by an excellent spirit,” as the son of Sirach says (Ecclus. 48:24), and may have lived and moved in these “last things,” even at a time when the Assyrian empire was still standing. But we do not regard all that is possible as being therefore real. We can examine quite impartially whether this really was the case, and without our ultimate decision being under the constraint of any unalterable foregone conclusion, like that of the critics referred to. All that we have said in praise of chapters 40-66 would retain its fullest force, even if the author of the whole should prove to be a prophet of the captivity, and not Isaiah.

We have already given a cursory glance at the general and particular grounds upon which we maintain the probability, or rather the certainty, that Isaiah was the author of chapters 40-66; and we have explained them more fully in the concluding remarks to Drechsler’s Commentary (vol. iii. pp. 361-416), to which we would refer any readers who wish to obtain a complete insight into the pro and con of this critical question. All false supports of Isaiah’s authorship have there been willingly given up; for the words of Job to his friends (Job 13:7-8) are quite as applicable to a biblical theologian of the present day.

We have admitted, that throughout the whole of the twenty-seven prophecies, the author of chapters 40-66 has the captivity as his fixed standpoint, or at any rate as a standpoint that is only so far a fluctuating one, as the eventual deliverance approaches nearer and nearer, and that without ever betraying the difference between the real present and this ideal one; so that as the prophetic vision of the future has its roots in every other instance in the soil of the prophet’s own time, and springs out of that soil, to all appearance he is an exile himself. But notwithstanding this, the following arguments may be adduced in support of Isaiah’s authorship. In the first place, the deliverance foretold in these prophecies, with all its attendant circumstances, is referred to as something beyond the reach of human foresight, and known to Jehovah alone, and as something the occurrence of which would prove Him to be the God of Gods. Jehovah, the God of the prophecy, new the name of Cyrus even before he knew it himself; and He demonstrated His Godhead to all the world, inasmuch as He caused the name and work of the deliverer of Israel to be foretold (Isa 45:4-7). Secondly, although these prophecies rest throughout upon the soil of the captivity, and do not start with the historical basis of Hezekiah’s time, as we should expect them to do, with Isaiah as their author; yet the discrepancy between this phenomenon and the general character of prophecy elsewhere, loses its full force as an argument against Isaiah’s authorship, if we do not separate chapters 40-66 from chapters 1-39 and take it as an independent work, as is generally done. The whole of the first half of the collection is a staircase, leading up to these addresses to the exiles, and bears the same relation to them, as a whole, as the Assyrian pedestal in Isa 14:24-27 to the Babylonian massâ in Isaiah 13-14:26. This relation between the two - namely, that Assyrian prophecies lay the foundation for Babylonian - runs through the whole of the first half. It is so arranged, that the prophecies of the Assyrian times throughout have intermediate layers, which reach beyond those times; and whilst the former constitute the groundwork, the latter form the gable. This is the relation in which chapters 24-27 stand to chapters 13-23, and chapters 34-35 to chapters 28-33. And within the cycle of prophecies against the nations, three Babylonian prophecies - viz. Isaiah 13-14:23; Isa 21:1-10, and 23 - form the commencement, middle, and end. The Assyrian prophecies lie within a circle, the circumference and diameter of which consist of prophecies that have a longer span. And are all these prophecies, that are inserted with such evident skill and design, to be taken away from our prophet? The oracle concerning Babel, in Isaiah 13-14:23, has all the ring of a prophecy of Isaiah’s, as we have already seen; and in the epilogue, in Isa 14:24-27, it has Isaiah’s signature. The second oracle concerning Babel, in Isa 21:1-10, is not only connected with three passages of Isaiah’s that are acknowledged as genuine, so as to form a tetralogy; but in style and spirit it is most intimately bound up with them. The cycle of prophecies of the final catastrophe (chapters 24-27) commences so thoroughly in Isaiah’s style, that nearly every word and every turn in the first three vv. bears Isaiah’s stamp; and in Isa 27:12-13, it dies away, just like the book of Immanuel, Isa 11:11. And the genuineness of chapters 34 and Isa 35:1-10 has never yet been disputed on any valid grounds. Knobel, indeed, maintains that the historical background of this passage establishes its spuriousness; but it is impossible to detect any background of contemporaneous history. Edom in this instance represents the world, as opposed to the people of God, just as Moab does in Isa 25:1-12. Consider, moreover, that these disputed prophecies form a series which constitutes in every respect a prelude to chapters 40-66. Have we not in Isa 13:1-2, the substance of chapters 40-66, as it were, in nuce? Is not the trilogy “Babel,” in chapters 46-48, like an expansion of the vision in Isa 21:1-10? Is not the prophecy concerning Edom in chapter 34 the side-piece to Isa 63:1-6? And do we not hear in Isa 35:1-10 the direct prelude to the melody, which is continued in chapters 40-66? And to this we may add still further the fact, that prominent marks of Isaiah are common alike to the disputed prophecies, and to those whose genuineness is acknowledged. The name of God, which is so characteristic of Isaiah, and which we meet with on every hand in acknowledged prophecies in chapters 1-39, viz., “the Holy One of Israel,” runs also through chapters 40-66. And so again do the confirmatory words, “Thus saith Jehovah,” and the interchange of the national names Jacob and Israel (compare, for example, Isa 40:27 with Isa 29:23).The remark which we made at p. 77, to the effect that Isaiah prefers Israel, is therefore to be qualified, inasmuch as in ch. 40-66 Jacob takes precedence of Israel.

The rhetorical figure called epnanaphora, which may be illustrated by an Arabic proverb -See Mehren, Rhetorik der Araber, p. 161ff.“Enjoy the scent of the yellow roses of Negd; For when the evening if gone, it is over with the yellow roses,” - is very rare apart from the book of Isaiah (Gen 6:9; Gen 35:12; Lev 25:41; Job 11:7); whereas in the book of Isaiah itself it runs like a favourite oratorical turn from beginning to end (vid., Isa 1:7; Isa 4:3; Isa 6:11; Isa 13:10; Isa 14:25; Isa 15:8; Isa 30:20; Isa 34:9; Isa 40:19; Isa 42:15, Isa 42:19; Isa 48:21; Isa 51:13; Isa 53:6-7; Isa 54:5, Isa 54:13; Isa 50:4; Isa 58:2; Isa 59:8 - a collection of examples which could probably be still further increased). But there are still deeper lines of connection than these. How strikingly, for example, does Isa 28:5 ring in harmony with Isa 62:3, and Isa 29:23 (cf., Isa 5:7) with Isa 60:21! And does not the leading thought which is expressed in Isa 22:11; Isa 37:26 (cf., Isa 25:1), viz., that whatever is realized in history has had its pre-existence as an idea in God, run with a multiplied echo through chapters 40-66? And does not the second half repeat, in Isa 65:25, in splendidly elaborate paintings, and to some extent in the very same words (which is not unlike Isaiah), what we have already found in Isa 11:6., Isa 30:26, and other passages, concerning the future glorification of the earthly and heavenly creation? Yea, we may venture to maintain (and no one has ever attempted to refute it), that the second half of the book of Isaiah (chapters 40-66), so far as its theme, its standpoint, its style, and its ideas are concerned, is in a state of continuous formation throughout the whole of the first (chapters 1-39). On the frontier of the two halves, the prediction in Isa 39:5, Isa 39:7 stands like a sign-post, with the inscription, “To Babylon.” There, viz., in Babylon, is henceforth Isaiah’s spiritual home; there he preaches to the church of the captivity the way of salvation, and the consolation of redemption, but to the rebellious the terrors of judgment.

That this is the case, is confirmed by the reciprocal relation in which chapters 40-66 stand to all the other literature of the Old Testament with which we are acquainted. In chapters 40-66 we find reminiscences from the book of Job (compare Isa 40:23 with Job 12:24; Isa 44:25 with Job 12:17, Job 12:20; Isa 44:24 with Job 9:8; Isa 40:14 with Job 21:22; Isa 59:4 with Job 15:35 and Psa 7:15). And the first half points back to Job in just the same manner. The poetical words גזע, התגּבּר, צאצאים, are only met with in the book of Isaiah and the book of Job. Once at least, namely Isa 59:7, we are reminded of mishlē (Pro 1:16); whilst in the first half we frequently met with imitations of the mâshâl of Solomon. The two halves stand in exactly the same relation to the book of Micah; compare Isa 58:1 with Mic 3:8, like Isa 2:2-4 with Mic 4:1-4, and Isa 26:21 with Mic 1:3. And the same relation to Nahum runs through the two; compare Nah 3:4-5 with Isa 47:1-15, Nah 2:1 with Isa 52:7, Isa 52:1, and Nah 2:11 with Isa 24:1; Nah 3:13 with Isa 19:16. We leave the question open, on which side the priority lies. But when we find in Zephaniah and Jeremiah points of contact not only with Isaiah 40-66, but also with chapter 13-14:23; Isa 21:1-10; 21:34-35, which preclude the possibility of accident, it is more than improbable that these two prophets should have been imitated by the author of chapters 40-66, since it is in them above all others that we meet with the peculiar disposition to blend the words and thoughts of their predecessors with their own. Not only does Zephaniah establish points of contact with Isaiah 13 and 34 in by no means an accidental manner, but compare Isa 2:15 with Isa 47:8, Isa 47:10, and Isa 3:10 with Isa 66:20. The former passage betrays its derivative character by the fact that עלּיז is a word that belongs exclusively to Isaiah; whilst the latter is not only a compendium of Isa 66:20, but also points back to Isa 18:1, Isa 18:7, in the expression לנהרי־כוּשׁ מעבר. In Jeremiah, the indication of dependence upon Isaiah comes out most strongly in the prophecy against Babylon in Jer 50-51; ; in fact, it is so strong, that Movers, Hitzig, and De Wette regard the anonymous author of chapters 40-66 as the interpolator of this prophecy. But it also contains echoes of Isaiah 13-14; 21, and 34, and is throughout a Mosaic or earlier prophecies. The passage in Jer 10:1-16 concerning the nothingness of the gods of the nations, sounds also most strikingly like Isaiah's; compare more especially Isa 44:12-15; Isa 41:7; Isa 46:7, though the attempt has also been made to render this intelligible by the interpolation hypothesis. It is not only in Isa 40:6-8 and Isa 40:10, which are admitted to be Jeremiah’s, that we meet with the peculiar characteristics of Jeremiah; but even in passages that are rejected we find such expressions of his as יפּה, אותם for אתּם, נבער, תּעתּעים, פּקדּה, a penal visitation, such as we never meet with in Isaiah II. And the whole of the consolatory words in Jer 30:10-11, and again in Jer 46:27-28, which sound so much like the deutero-Isaiah, are set down as having been inserted in the book of Jeremiah by Isaiah II. But Caspari has shown that this is impossible, because the concluding words of the promise, “I will correct thee in measure, and will not leave thee altogether unpunished,” would have no meaning at all if uttered at the close of the captivity; and also, because such elements as are evidently Jeremiah’s, and in which it coincides with prophecies of Jeremiah that are acknowledged to be genuine, far outweigh those of the deutero-Isaiah. And yet in this passage, when Israel is addressed as “my servant,” we hear the tone of the deutero-Isaiah. Jeremiah fuses in this instance, as in many other passages, the tones of Isaiah with his own. There are also many other passages which coincide with passages of the second part of Isaiah, both in substance and expression, though not so conclusively as those already quoted, and in which we have to decide between regarding Jeremiah as an imitator, or Isaiah II as an interpolator. But if we compare Jer 6:15 with Isa 56:11, and Isa 48:6 with Jer 33:3, where Jeremiah, according to his usual custom, gives a different turn to the original passages by a slight change in the letters, we shall find involuntary reminiscences of Isaiah in Jeremiah, in such parallels as Jer 3:16; Isa 65:17; Jer 4:13; Isa 66:15; Jer 11:19; Isa 53:1; and shall hear the ring of Isa 51:17-23 in Jeremiah’s qı̄nōth, and that of Isaiah 56:9-57:11 a in the earlier reproachful addresses of Jeremiah, and not vice versa.

In conclusion, let us picture to ourselves the gradual development of Isaiah’s view of the captivity, that penal judgment already threatened in the law. (1.) In the Uzziah-Jotham age the prophet refers to the captivity, in the most general terms that can be conceived, in Isa 6:12, though he mentions it casually by its own name even in Isa 5:13. (2.) In the time of Ahaz we already see him far advanced beyond this first sketchy reference to the captivity. In Isa 11:11. he predicts a second deliverance, resembling the Egyptian Exodus. Asshur stands at the head of the countries of the diaspora, as the imperial power by which the judgment of captivity is carried out. (3.) In the early years of Hezekiah, Isa 22:18 appears to indicate the carrying away of Judah by Asshur. But when the northern kingdom had succumbed to the judgment of the Assyrian banishment, and Judah had been mercifully spared this judgment, the eyes of Isaiah were directed to Babylon as the imperial power destined to execute the same judgment upon Judah. We may see this from Isa 39:5-7. Micah also speaks of Babylon as the future place of punishment and deliverance (Mic 4:10). The prophecies of the overthrow of Babylon in Isa 13:14, Isa 13:21, are therefore quite in the spirit of the prophecies of Hezekiah’s time. And chapters 40-66 merely develop on all sides what was already contained in germ in Isa 14:1-2; Isa 21:10. It is well known that in the time of Hezekiah Babylon attempted to break loose from Assyria; and so also the revolt of the Medes from Asshur, and the union of their villages and districts under one monarch named Deyoces, occurred in the time of Hezekiah.Spiegel (Eran, p. 313ff.) places the revolt of the Medes in the year 714, and Deyoces in the year 708.

It is quite characteristic of Isaiah that he never names the Persians, who were at that time still subject to the Medes. He mentions Madai in Isa 13:17 and Isa 21:2, and Kōresh (Kurus), the founder of the Persian monarchy; but not that one of the two leading Iranian tribes, which gained its liberty through him in the time of Astyages, and afterwards rose to the possession of the imperial sway.

But how is it possible that Isaiah should have mentioned Cyrus by name centuries before this time (210 years, according to Josephus, Ant. xi. 1, 2)? Windischmann answers this question in his Zoroastrische Studien, p. 137. “No one,” he says, “who believes in a living, personal, omniscient God, and in the possibility of His revealing future events, will ever deny that He possesses the power to foretell the name of a future monarch.” And Albrecht Weber, the Indologian, finds in this answer “an evidence of self-hardening against the scientific conscience,” and pronounces such hardening nothing less than “devilish.”

It is not possible to come to any understanding concerning this point, which is the real nerve of the prevailing settled conclusion as to chapters 40-66. We therefore hasten on to our exposition. And in relation to this, if we only allow that the prophet really was a prophet, it is of no essential consequence to what age he belonged. For in this one point we quite agree with the opponents of its genuineness, namely, that the standpoint of the prophet is the second half of the captivity. If the author is Isaiah, as we feel constrained to assume for reasons that we have already stated here and elsewhere, he is entirely carried away from his own times, and leads a pneumatic life among the exiles. There is, in fact, no more “Johannic” book in the whole of the Old Testament than this book of consolation. It is like the produce of an Old Testament gift of tongues. The fleshly body of speech has been changed into a glorified body; and we hear, as it were, spiritual voices from the world beyond, or world of glory.

PART I. FIRST PROPHECY.— Chap 40. WORDS OF COMFORT, AND THE GOD OF COMPORT.

Isa 40:1 In this first address the prophet vindicates his call to be the preacher of the comfort of the approaching deliverance, and explains this comfort on the ground that Jehovah, who called him to this comforting proclamation, was the incomparably exalted Creator and Ruler of the world. The first part of this address (Isa 40:1-11) may be regarded as the prologue to the whole twenty-seven. The theme of the prophetic promise, and the irresistible certainty of its fulfilment, are here declared. Turning of the people of the captivity, whom Jehovah has neither forgotten nor rejected, the prophet commences thus in Isa 40:1 : “Comfort ye, comfort ye may people, saith your God.” This is the divine command to the prophets. Nachămū (piel, literally, to cause to breathe again) is repeated, because of its urgency (anadiplosis, as in Isa 41:27; Isa 43:11, Isa 43:25, etc.). The word יאמר, which does not mean “will say” here (Hofmann, Stier), but “saith” (lxx, Jerome) - as, for example, in 1Sa 24:14 - affirms that the command is a continuous one. The expression “saith your God” is peculiar to Isaiah, and common to both parts of the collection (Isa 1:11, Isa 1:18; Isa 33:10; Isa 40:1, Isa 40:25; Isa 41:21; Isa 66:9). The future in all these passages is expressive of that which is taking place or still continuing. And it is the same here. The divine command has not been issued once only, or merely to one prophet, but is being continually addressed to many prophets. “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,” is the continual charge of the God of the exiles. who has not ceased to be their God even in the midst of wrath, to His messengers and heralds the prophets.

Appendix to Isaiah

Introduction/Exposition of Its Existing State

In the commentary on the second half of Isaiah 40-66, I have referred here and there to the expositions of J. Heinemann (Berlin 1842) and Isaiah Hochstädter (Carlsruhe 1827), both written in Hebrew - the former well worthy of notice for criticism of the text, the latter provided with a German translation. For the psalm of Hezekiah (ch. 38) Professor Sam. David Luzzatto of Padua lent me his exposition in manuscript. Since then this great and noble-minded man has departed this life (on the 29th Sept. 1865). His commentary on Isaiah, so far as it has been printed, is full of information and of new and stirring explanations, written in plain, lucid, rabbinical language. It would be a great misfortune for the second half of this valuable work to remain unprinted. I well remember the assistance which the deceased afforded me in my earlier studies of the history of the post-biblical Jewish poetry (1836), and the affection which he displayed when I renewed my former acquaintance with him on the occasion of his publishing his Isaiah; so that I lament his loss on my own account as well as in the interests of science. “Why have you allowed twenty-five years to pass,” he wrote to me on the 22nd Feb. 1863, “without telling me that you remembered me? Is it because we form different opinions of the עלמה and the ילד ילד לנו of Isaiah? Are you a sincere Christian? Then you are a hundred times dearer to me than so many Israelitish scholars, the partizans of Spinoza, with whom our age swarms.” These words indicate very clearly the standpoint taken in his writings.

Of the commentaries written in English, I am acquainted not only with Lowth, but with the thoroughly practical commentary of Henderson (1857), and that of Joseph Addison Alexander, Prov. in Princeton (1847, etc.), which is very much read as an exegetical repertorium in England also. But I had neither of them in my possession. Isa 1:1

What I have said here on Isa 1:1 as the heading to the whole book, or at any rate to Isaiah 1-39, has been said in part by Photios also in his Amphilochia, which Sophocles the M.D. has published complete from a MS of Mount Athos (Athens 1858, 4).

Isa 40:2

The summons is now repeated with still greater emphasis, the substance of the consoling proclamation being also given. “Speak ye to the heart of Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her affliction is ended, that her debt is paid, that she has received from the hand of Jehovah double for all her sins.” The holy city is thought of here in connection with the population belonging to it. על־לב דּבּר (to speak to the heart) is an expression applied in Gen 34:3 and Jdg 19:3 to words adapted to win the heart; in Gen 50:21, to the words used by Joseph to inspire his brethren with confidence; whilst here it is used in precisely the same sense as in Hos 2:16, and possibly not without a reminiscence of this earlier prophecy. אל קרא (to call to a person) is applied to a prophetic announcement made to a person, as in Jer 7:27; Zec 1:4. The announcement to be made to Jerusalem is then introduced with כּי, ὅτι, which serves as the introduction to either an indirect or a direct address (Ges. §155, 1,e). (1.) Her affliction has become full, and therefore has come to an end. צבא, military service, then feudal service, and hardship generally (Job 7:1); here it applies to the captivity or exile - that unsheltered bivouac, as it were, of the people who had bee transported into a foreign land, and were living there in bondage, restlessness, and insecurity. (2.) Her iniquity is atoned for, and the justice of God is satisfied: nirtsâh, which generally denotes a satisfactory reception, is used here in the sense of meeting with a satisfactory payment, like עון רצה in Lev 26:41, Lev 26:43, to pay off the debt of sin by enduring the punishment of sin. (3.) The third clause repeats the substance of the previous ones with greater emphasis and in a fuller tone: Jerusalem has already suffered fully for her sins. In direct opposition to לקחה, which cannot, when connected with two actual perfects as it is here, be take as a perfect used to indicate the certainty of some future occurrence, Gesenius, Hitzig, Ewald, Umbreit, Stier, and Hahn suppose kiphlayim to refer to the double favour that Jerusalem was about to receive (like mishneh in Isa 61:7, and possibly borrowed from Isaiah in Zec 9:12), instead of to the double punishment which Jerusalem had endured (like mishneh in Jer 16:18). It is not to be taken, however, in a judicial sense; in which case God would appear over-rigid, and therefore unjust. Jerusalem had not suffered more than its sins had deserved; but the compassion of God regarded what His justice had been obliged to inflict upon Jerusalem as superabundant. This compassion also expresses itself in the words “for all” (bekhol, c. Beth pretii): there is nothing left for further punishment. The turning-point from wrath to love has arrived. The wrath has gone forth in double measure. With what intensity, therefore, will the love break forth, which has been so long restrained!

Isa 40:3

There is a sethume in the text at this point. The first two vv. form a small parashah by themselves, the prologue of the prologue. After the substance of the consolation has been given on its negative side, the question arises, What positive salvation is to be expected? This question is answered for the prophet, inasmuch as, in the ecstatic stillness of his mind as turned to God, he hears a marvellous voice. “Hark, a crier! In the wilderness prepare ye a way for Jehovah, make smooth in the desert a road for our God.” This is not to be rendered “a voice cries” (Ges., Umbreit, etc.); but the two words are in the construct state, and form an interjectional clause, as in Isa 13:4; Isa 52:8; Isa 66:6 : Voice of one crying! Who the crier is remains concealed; his person vanishes in the splendour of his calling, and falls into the background behind the substance of his cry. The cry sounds like the long-drawn trumpet-blast of a herald (cf., Isa 16:1). The crier is like the outrider of a king, who takes care that the way by which the king is to go shall be put into good condition. The king is Jehovah; and it is all the more necessary to prepare the way for Him in a becoming manner, that this way leads through the pathless desert. Bammidbâr is to be connected with pannū, according to the accents on account of the parallel (zakeph katan has a stronger disjunctive force here than zekpeh gadol, as in Deu 26:14; Deu 28:8; 2Ki 1:6), though without any consequent collision with the New Testament description of the fulfilment itself. And so also the Targum and Jewish expositors take במדבר קור קול together, like the lxx, and after this the Gospels. We may, or rather apparently we must, imagine the crier as advancing into the desert, and summoning the people to come and make a road through it. But why does the way of Jehovah lie through the desert, and whither does it lead? It was through the desert that He went to redeem Israel out of Egyptian bondage, and to reveal Himself to Israel from Sinai (Deu 33:2; Jdg 5:4; Psa 88:8); and in Psa 88:4 (5.) God the Redeemer of His people is called hârōkhēbh bâ‛ărâbhōth. Just as His people looked for Him then, when they were between Egypt and Canaan; so was He to be looked for by His people again, now that they were in the “desert of the sea” (Isa 21:1), and separated by Arabia deserta from their fatherland. If He were coming at the head of His people, He Himself would clear the hindrances out of His way; but He was coming through the desert to Israel, and therefore Israel itself was to take care that nothing should impede the rapidity or detract from the favour of the Coming One. The description answers to the reality; but, as we shall frequently find as we go further on, the literal meaning spiritualizes itself in an allegorical way.

Isa 40:4

The summons proceeds in a commanding tone. “Let every valley be exalted, and every mountain and hill made low; and let the rugged be made a plain, and the ledges of rocks a valley.” והיה, which takes its tone from the two jussive verbs, is also itself equivalent to ויהי. Instead of גּיא (from גּיא), the pointing in Zec 14:4, we have here (according to Kimchi) the vowel-pointing גּיא; at the same time, the editions of Brescia, Pesaro, Venice 1678, have גּיא (with tzere), and this is also the reading of a codex of Luzzatto without Masoretic notes. The command, according to its spiritual interpretation, points to the encouragement of those that are cast down, the humiliation of the self-righteous and self-secure, the changing of dishonesty into simplicity, and of unapproachable haughtiness into submission (for ‛âqōbh, hilly, rugged,In this ethical sense Essex applied the word to Queen Elizabeth. See Hefele, Ximenes, p. 90 (ed. 2). compare Jer 17:9 together with Hab 2:4). In general, the meaning is that Israel is to take care, that the God who is coming to deliver it shall find it in such an inward and outwards state as befits His exaltation and His purpose.

Isa 40:5

The cry of the crier proceeds thus in Isa 40:5 : “And the glory of Jehovah will be revealed, and all flesh seeth together: for the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it.” The pret. cons. קנגלה is here apodosis imper. When the way is prepared for Jehovah the Coming One, the glory of the God of salvation will unveil itself (on the name Jehovah, which is applied to God, the absolute I, as living and revealing Himself in history, more especially in the history of salvation). His parousia is the revelation of His glory (1Pe 4:13). This revelation is made for the good of Israel, but not secretly or exclusively; for all the human race, called here designedly “all flesh” (kol bâsâr), will come to see it (compare Luk 3:6, “the salvation of God”). Man, because he is flesh, cannot see God without dying (Exo 33:20); but the future will fill up this gulf of separation. The object to the verb “see” is not what follows, as Rosenmüller supposes, viz., “that the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken,” for the word of promise which is here fulfilled is not one addressed to all flesh; nor does it mean, “see that Jehovah hath spoken with His own mouth,” i.e., after having become man, as Stier maintains, for the verb required in this case would be מדבּר, not דּבּר. The clause, “for the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it,” is rather Isaiah’s usual confirmation of the foregoing prophecy. Here the crier uses it to establish the certainty of what he foretells, provided that Israel will do what he summons it to perform.

Isa 40:6-8

The prophet now hears a second voice, and then a third, entering into conversation with it. “Hark, one speaking, Cry! And he answers, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all its beauty as the flower of the field. Grass is withered, flower faded: for the breath of Jehovah has blown upon it. Surely grass is the people; grass withereth, flower fadeth: yet the word of our God will stand for ever.” A second voice celebrates the divine word of promise in the face of the approaching fulfilment, and appoints a preacher of its eternal duration. The verb is not ואמר (et dixi, lxx, Vulg.), but ואמר; so that the person asking the question is not the prophet himself, but an ideal person, whom he has before him in visionary objectiveness. The appointed theme of his proclamation is the perishable nature of all flesh (Isa 40:5 πᾶσα σάρξ, here πᾶσα ἡ σάρξ), and, on the other hand, the imperishable nature of the word of God. Men living in the flesh are universally impotent, perishing, limited; God, on the contrary (Isa 31:3), is the omnipotent, eternal, all-determining; and like Himself, so is His word, which, regarded as the vehicle and utterance of His willing and thinking, is not something separate from Himself, and therefore is the same as He. Chasdō is the charm or gracefulness of the outward appearance (lxx; 1Pe 1:24, δόξα: see Schott on the passage, Jam 1:11, εὐπρέπεια). The comparison instituted with grass and flower recals Isa 37:27 and Job 8:12, and still more Psa 90:5-6, and Job 14:2. Isa 40:7 describes what happens to the grass and flower. The preterites, like the Greek aoristus gnomicus (cf., Isa 26:10), express a fact of experience sustained by innumerable examples: exaruit gramen, emarcuit flos;נבל has munach here and in Isa 40:8 attached to the penultimate in all correct texts (hence milel, on account of the monosyllable which follows), and mehteg on the tzere to sustain the lengthening. consequently the כּי which follows is not hypothetical (granting that), but explanatory of the reason, viz., “because rūăch Jehovah hath blown upon it,” i.e., the “breath” of God the Creator, which pervades the creation, generating life, sustaining life, and destroying life, and whose most characteristic elementary manifestation is the wind. Every breath of wind is a drawing of the breath of the whole life of nature, the active indwelling principle of whose existence is the rūăch of God. A fresh v. ought to commence now with אכן. The clause העם חציר אכן is genuine, and thoroughly in Isaiah’s style, notwithstanding the lxx, which Gesenius and Hitzig follow. עכן is not equivalent to a comparative כן (Ewald, §105,a), but is assuring, as in Isa 45:15; Isa 49:4; Isa 53:4; and hâ‛âm (the people) refers to men generally, as in Isa 42:5. The order of thought is in the form of a triolet. The explanation of the striking simile commences with 'âkhēn (surely); and then in the repetition of the words, “grass withereth, flower fadeth,” the men are intended, resemble the grass and the flower. Surely grass is the human race; such grass withereth and such flower fadeth, but the word of our God (Jehovah, the God of His people and of sacred history) yâqūm le‛ōlâm, i.e., it rises up without withering or fading, and endures for ever, fulfilling and verifying itself through all times. This general truth refers, in the preset instance, to the word of promise uttered by the voice in the desert. If the word of God generally has an eternal duration, more especially is this the case with the word of the parousia of God the Redeemer, the word in which all the words of God are yea and amen. The imperishable nature of this word, however, has for its dark foil the perishable nature of all flesh, and all the beauty thereof. The oppressors of Israel are mortal, and their chesed with which they impose and bribe is perishable; but the word of God, with which Israel can console itself, preserves the fields, and ensures it a glorious end to its history. Thus the seal, which the first crier set upon the promise of Jehovah’s speedy coming, is inviolable; and the comfort which the prophets of God are to bring to His people, who have now been suffering so long, is infallibly sure.

Isa 40:9

The prophet accordingly now takes, as his standpoint, the time when Jehovah will already have come. “Upon a high mountain get thee up, O evangelistess Zion; lift up they voice with strength, evangelistess Jerusalem: lift up, be not afraid; say to the cities of Judah, Behold your God.” Knobel and others follow the lxx and Targum, and regard Zion and Jerusalem as accusatives of the object, viz., “preacher of salvation (i.e., a chorus of preachers) to Zion-Jerusalem;” but such parallels as Isa 52:7 and Isa 62:11 are misleading here. The words are in apposition (A. S. Th. εὐαγγελιζομένη Σιών). Zion-Jerusalem herself is called an evangelistess: the personification as a female renders this probable at the outset, and it is placed beyond all doubt by the fact, that it is the cities of Judah (the daughters of Zion-Jerusalem) that are to be evangelized. The prophet’s standpoint here is in the very midst of the parousia. When Jerusalem shall have her God in the midst of her once more, after He has broken up His home there for so long a time; she is then, as the restored mother-community, to ascend a high mountain, and raising her voice with fearless strength, to bring to her daughters the joyful news of the appearance of their God. The verb bissēr signifies literally to smooth, to unfold, then to make glad, more especially with joyful news.The verb bissēr signifies primarily to stroke, rub, shave, or scratch the surface of anything; then to stroke off or rub off the surface, or anything which covers it; then, suggested by the idea of “rubbing smooth” (glatt), “to smooth a person” (jemanden glätten; compare the English, to gladden a person), i.e., vultum ejus diducere, to make him friendly and cheerful, or “to look smoothly upon a person,” i.e., to show him a friendly face; and also as an intransitive, “to be glad,” to be friendly and cheerful; and lastly, in a general sense, aliquid attingere, tractare, attrectare, to grasp or handle a thing (from which comes bâsâr, the flesh, as something tangible or material). In harmony with the Hebrew bissēr (Jer 20:15), they say in Arabic basarahu (or intensive, bassarahu) bi-maulûdin, he has gladdened him with the news of the birth of a son.

It lies at the root of the New Testament εὐαγγελίζειν (evangelize), and is a favourite word of the author of chapters 40-66, that Old Testament evangelist, though it is no disproof of Isaiah’s authorship (cf., Nah 2:1). Hitherto Jerusalem has been in despair, bowed down under the weight of the punishment of her sins, and standing in need of consolation. But now that she has Jehovah with her again, she is to lift up her voice with the most joyful confidence, without further anxiety, and to become, according to her true vocation, the messenger of good tidings to all Judaea.

Isa 40:10

In Isa 40:10 the prophet goes back from the standpoint of the fulfilment to that of the prophecy. “Behold the Lord, Jehovah, as a mighty one will He come, His arm ruling for Him; behold, His reward is with Him, and His retribution before Him.” We must not render the first clause “with strong,” i.e., with strength, as the lxx and Targum do. The Beth is Beth essentiae (cf., Isa 26:4; Ges. §154, 3,a). He will come in the essence, strength, and energy of a strong one; and this is still further defined by the participial, circumstantial clause, “His arm ruling for Him” (brachio suo ipsi dominante). It is His arm that rules for Him, i.e., that either brings into subjection to Him, or else overthrows whatever opposes Him. Nevertheless, Isa 40:10 does not present Him merely in one aspect, namely as coming to judge and punish, but in both aspects, viz., that of the law and that of the gospel, as a righteous rewarder; hence the double name of God, Adonai Jehovah (compare Isa 3:15; Isa 28:16; Isa 30:15, all in the first part), which is used even in the Pentateuch, and most frequently by Amos and Ezekiel, and which forms, as it were, an anagram. פּעלּה is already met with in Lev 19:13 as a synonym of שׂכר, passing from the general idea of work to that of something earned and forfeited. Jehovah brings with Him the penal reward of the enemies of His people, and also the gracious reward of the faithful of His people, whom He will compensate for their previous sufferings with far exceeding joys (see Isa 62:11).

Isa 40:11

The prophet dwells upon this, the redeeming side not the judicial, as he proceeds to place the image of the good shepherd by the side of that of the Lord Jehovah. “He will feed His flock like a shepherd, take the lambs in His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and gently lead those that are giving suck.” The flock is His people, now dispersed in a foreign land. The love with which He tends this flock is shown, by way of example, in His conduct towards the טלאים (= טליים from טלי = טלה), the young lambs that have not long been born, and the עלות, those giving suck, lactantes (Vulg. fetae), not those that are sucking, sugentes (from עוּל med. Vav, to nourish). Such as cannot keep pace with the flock he takes in his arms, and carries in the bosom of his dress; and the mothers he does not overdrive, but ינהל (see at Psa 23:2), lets them go gently alone, because they require care (Gen 33:13). With this loving picture the prologue in Isa 40:1-11 is brought to a close. It stands at the head of the whole, like a divine inauguration of the prophet, and like the quintessence of what he is commanded to proclaim. Nevertheless it is also an integral part of the first address. For the questions which follow cannot possibly be the commencement of the prophecy, though it is not very clear how far they form a continuation.

The connection is the following: The prophet shows both didactically and paraenetically what kind of God it is whose appearance to redeem His people has been prophetically announced in Isa 40:1-11. He is the incomparably exalted One. This incomparable exaltation makes the ignorance of the worshipers of idols the more apparent, but it serves to comfort Israel. And Israel needs such consolation in its present banishment, in which it is so hard for it to comprehend the ways of God.

Isa 40:12

In order to bring His people to the full consciousness of the exaltation of Jehovah, the prophet asks in Isa 40:12, “Who hath measured the waters with the hollow of his hand, and regulated the heavens with a span, and taken up the dust of the earth in a third measure, and weighed the mountains with a steelyard, and hills with balances?” Jehovah, and He alone, has given to all these their proper quantities, their determinate form, and their proportionate place in the universe. How very little can a man hold in the hollow of his hand (shō‛al)!The root שׁל, Arab. sl has the primary meaning of easily moving or being easily moved; then of being loose or slack, of hanging down, or sinking-a meaning which we meet with in שׁעל and שׁאל. Accordingly, shō‛al signifies the palm (i.e., the depression made by the hand), and she'ōl not literally a hollowing or cavity, but a depression or low ground. how very small is the space which a man’s span will cover! how little is contained in the third of an ephah (shâlı̄sh; see at Psa 80:6)! and how trifling in either bulk or measure is the quantity you can weight in scales, whether it be a peles, i.e., a steelyard (statera), or mō'zenayim, a tradesman’s balance (bilances), consisting of two scales.According to the meaning, to level or equalize, which is one meaning of pillēs, the noun peles is applied not only to a level used to secure equilibrium, which is called mishqeleth in Isa 28:17, but also to a steelyard used for weighing, the beam of which consists of a lever with unequal arms, which flies up directly the weight is removed.

But what Jehovah measures with the hollow of His hand, and with His span, is nothing less than the waters beneath and the heavens above. He carries a scoop, in which there is room for all the dust of which the earth consists, and a scale on which He has weighed the great colossal mountains.

Isa 40:13-14

A second question follows in Isa 40:13, Isa 40:14. “Who regulated the Spirit of Jehovah, and (who)instructed Him as His counsellor? With whom took He counsel, and who would have explained to Him and instructed Him concerning the path of right, and taught Him knowledge, and made known to Him a prudent course?” The first question called to mind the omnipotence of Jehovah; this recalls His omniscience, which has all fulness in itself, and therefore precludes all instruction from without. “The Spirit of Jehovah” is the Spirit which moved upon the waters at the creation, and by which chaos was reduced to order. “Who,” inquires this prophet - “who furnished this Spirit with the standard, according to which all this was to be done?” תּכּן as in Isa 40:12, to bring into conformity with rule, and so to fit for regulated working. Instead of mercha tifchah athnach, which suggests the Targum rendering, “quis direxit spiritum? Jehova” (vid., Pro 16:2), it would be more correct to adopt the accentuation tifchah munach athnach (cf., Exo 21:24; Exo 23:9), and there are certain codices in which we find this (see Dachselt). In Isa 40:13 we might follow the Septuagint translation, καὶ τίς αὐτοῦ σύμβουλος ἐγένετο ὃς σύμβιβᾶ (Rom 11:34; 1Co 2:16, συμβιβάσει) αὐτόν, but in this case we miss the verb היה. The rendering we have given above is not so harsh, and the accentuation is indifferent here, since silluk is never written without tifchahif only a single word precedes it. In Isa 40:14 the reciprocal נוע is connected with את = אם. The futt. cons. retain their literal meaning: with whom did He consult, so that he supplied Him with understanding in consequence (hēbhı̄n, generally to understand, here in a causative sense). The verbs of instruction are sometimes construed with בּ of the lesson taught, sometimes with a double accusative. In reply to the questions in Isa 40:13, Isa 40:14, which are essentially one, Israel must acknowledge that its God is the possessor of absolute might, and also of absolute wisdom.

Isa 40:15

From His exaltation as Creator, the prophet now proceeds to His exaltation as Governor of the world. “Behold, nations like a little drop on a bucket, and like a grain of sand in a balance, are they esteemed; behold, islands like an atom of dust that rises in the air.” Upon Jehovah, the King of the world, does the burden rest of ruling over the whole human race, which is split up into different nations; but the great masses of people over whom Jehovah rules are no more burden to Him than a drop hanging upon a bucket is a burden to the man who carries it (min is used in the same sense as in Sol 4:1; Sol 6:5), no more than the weight in a balance is perceptibly increased or diminished by a grain of sand that happens to lie upon it (shachaq, from shâchaq, to grind to powder). The islands, those fragments of firm ground in the midst of the ocean (אי = ivy, from אוה, to betake one’s self to a place, and remain there), upon which the heathen world was dispersed (Gen 10), are to Him who carries the universe like the small particle of dust (דּק from דּקק, to crush or pulverize), which is lifted up, viz., by the slightest breath of wind (יטּול metaplastic fut. niph. of tūl = nâtal, cf., Isa 63:9). The rendering of Knobel, “dust which is thrown,” would require עפר (Isa 41:2); and neither that of Gesenius, viz., “He takes up islands like a particle of dust,” nor that of Hitzig, “He carries islands,” etc., is admissible, for טוּל = נטל signifies tollere, not portare; and the former, viz., insulas tollit, furnishes no answer to the question, “How so, and to what end?”

Isa 40:16

By the side of this vanishing diminutiveness on the part of man as contrasted with Jehovah, everything by which man could express his adoration of the exalted One comes incomparably short of His exaltation. “And Lebanon is not a sufficiency of burning, nor its game a sufficiency of burnt-offerings;” i.e., there is not enough wood to sustain the fire, nor a sufficient supply of sacrificial animals to be slaughtered, and to ascend in fire. דּי (constr. דּי) signifies that which suffices (and then that which is plentiful); it differs therefore from τὸ δέον, what is requisite.The derivation of דּי is still more obscure than that of δεῖ, which signifies, according to Benfey (Wurzelwörterbuch, ii. 205), “there needs;” according to Sonne, “it binds, scil. ἡ ἀνάγκη.”

Isa 40:17

From the obverse of the thought in Isa 40:15 the prophet returns to the thought itself, and dwells upon it still further. “All the nations are as nothing before Him; they are regarded by Him as belonging to nullity and emptiness.” 'Ephes is the end at which a thing ceases, and in an absolute sense that at which all being ceases, hence non-existence or nullity. Tōhū (from tâhâh, related to shâ'âh; vid., Comm. on Job, at Job 37:6), a horrible desolation, like the chaos of creation, where there is nothing definite, and therefore as good as nothing at all; min is hardly comparative in the sense of “more nothing than nothing itself” (Like Job 11:17, where “brighter” is to be supplied, or Mic 7:4, where “sharper” is similarly required), but is used in the same partitive sense as in Isa 41:24 (cf., Isa 44:11 and Psa 62:10).

Isa 40:18

The conclusion drawn from Isa 40:17, that Jehovah is therefore the matchless Being, shapes itself into a question, which is addressed not to idolaters, but to such of the Israelites as needed to be armed against the seductive power of idolatry, to which the majority of mankind had yielded. “And to whom can ye liken God, and what kind of image can ye place beside Him!” The ו before ואל is conclusive, as in Isa 28:26, and the futures are modi potent.: with what can ye bring into comparison (אל as in Isa 14:10) El, i.e., God, the one Being who is absolutely the Mighty? and what kind of demūth (i.e., divine, like Himself) can ye place by His side?

Isa 40:19

Least of all can an idol bear comparison with Him. “The idol, when the smith has cast it, the melter plates it with gold, and melteth silver chains for it.” The object (happesel, the idol), which is here placed first as the theme in the accusative (lit. the image hewn out), denotes in this instance an idol generally. חרשׁ is as comprehensive as faber. בּזּהב רקּע signifies here to cover over with a זהב רקּע (laminâ auri), the verb being used in a denominative sense, and not in its primary meaning. As we must assume, according to Isa 40:20, that the prophet intends to carry us into the midst of the process of manufacturing the idol, the paratactic expression is to be pointed as above, viz., “after the (a) smith has cast it (compare Arab. nasik, a piece of cast metal), the (a) melter (goldsmith) covers it with gold plate;” and tsōrēph, which is palindromically repeated, according to Isaiah’s custom, is not the third pers. poel (on the poel of strong stems, see at Job 9:15 and Psa 109:10), but a participle, equivalent to הוּא צורף (as in Isa 29:8, which see; and also, according to the accents, Isa 33:5), “and he melteth chains of silver,” viz., to fasten the image.

Isa 40:20

This is the origin of a metal idol. The wooden idol is described in Isa 40:20 : “The man who is impoverished in oblations, he chooseth a block of wood that will not rot; he seeketh for himself a skilful smith, to prepare an idol that will not shake.” He who has fallen into such poverty that he can only offer to his God a poor oblation (terūmâh, accusative, according to Ewald, §284,c), has an idol cut for himself out of a block of wood. That sâkhan (Arab. sakana or sakuna)Both forms occur in this sense, according to the evidence of original sources, with the common imperative yaskunu, the infinitive sukūne passed over by Freytag, the verbal substantive maskane, and the adjective miskin or meskin, primarily to be forced to inactivity through weakness, destitution, or outward influences, not to be able to move and exert one’s self; or, more particularly, not to be able to defend one’s self (as it were to be obliged to sit still or keep still). Hence more especially opibus et facultatibus carens, being in distress, destitute, poor. is an ancient word, is evident from Deu 8:9. The verb yimmōt, like yittōl in Isa 40:15, is a fut. niphal, to be made to shake. A wooden image, which is planed at the bottom, and made heavier below than above, to prevent its falling over with every shock, is to be a god! The thing carries its own satire, even when described with the greatest seriousness.

Isa 40:21

Having thus depicted in a few strokes the infatuation of idolatry, the prophet addresses the following question to such of the Israelites as are looking at it with longing eye, even if they have not already been deluded by it. “Do ye not know? Do ye not hear? Is it not proclaimed to you from the beginning? Have ye not obtained an insight into the foundations of the earth?” We have here four questions chiastically arranged. The absolute being of God, which is above all created things, is something which may be either inferred per ratiocinationem, or learned per traditionem. When Israel failed to acknowledge the absolute distinctness and unequalled supremacy of Jehovah its God, it hardened itself against the knowledge which it might acquire even in a natural way (cf., Psa 19:1-14 and Rom 1:20), and shut its ears against the teaching of revelation and tradition, which had come down from the very beginning of its history. The first two questions are construed with futures, the other two with perfects; the former refer to what is possible, the latter to what is an actual fact. Have you - this is the meaning of the four questions - have you obtained no knowledge of the foundations of the earth, namely, as to the way in which they were laid?

Isa 40:22

The prophet now proceeds to describe the God whom both His works and word proclaim. The participles which follow are predicates of the subject, which filled the consciousness of the prophet as well as that of every believer. “He who is enthroned above the vault of the earth, and its inhabitants resemble grasshoppers; who has spread out the heavens like gauze, and stretched them out like a tent-roof to dwell in.” He, the manifested and yet unknown, is He who has for His throne the circle of the heavens (chūg shâmayim, Job 22:14), which arches over the earth, and to whom from His inaccessible height men appear as diminutive as grasshoppers (Num 13:33); He who has spread out the blue sky like a thin transparent garment (dōq, a thin fabric, like daq, fine dust, in Isa 40:15), and stretched it out above the earth like a tent for dwelling in ('ōhelThe noun 'ōhel is derived from the root אל, from which come Arab. 'wl, coaluit, cohaesit, to thicken within or gain consistency (hence, regarded on another side, to lose in outward extent or outward bulk, to shrink; to go back to its original or essential condition; to issue in something as the final result; or generally, to draw back or return from a distance), and Arab. 'h', to attach one’s self or accustom one’s self to a person or thing, equivalent to alifa and anisa; to take up one’s abode in a place, or absolutely, to commence housekeeping by marrying, like the Italian accasarsi, Turkish ewlenmek (from ew, a house); or, when applied to a place itself, to be habitable, inhabited, and cultivated (= pass. uhila, more especially in the participle âhil, = ‛âmir = ma‛mūr). (Hence ahl, one who belongs to a person or place, with its numerous applications, and also אהל, a tent (primarily a dwelling generally, Engl. abode), which stands at the end of this etymological series.lâshebheth). The participle brings to view the actions and circumstances of all times. In the present instance, where it is continued in the historical sense, it is to be resolved into the perfect; in other cases, the preservation of the world is evidently thought of as a creatio continua (see Psychol. P. 111).

Isa 40:23-24

This is followed by a series of predicates of God the Ruler of the universe. “He who giveth up rulers to annihilation; maketh judges of the earth like a desolation. They are hardly planted, hardly sown, their stem has hardly taken root in the earth, and He only blows upon them, and they dry up, and the storm carries them away like stubble.” There is nothing so high and inaccessible in the world, that He cannot bring it to nothing, even in the midst of its most self-confident and threatening exaltation. Rōzenı̄m are solemn persons, σεμνοί, possessors of the greatest distinction and influence; shōphelı̄m, those who combine in themselves the highest judicial and administrative power. The former He gives up to annihilation; the latter He brings into a condition resembling the negative state of the tōhū out of which the world was produced, and to which it can be reduced again. We are reminded here of such descriptions as Job 12:17, Job 12:24. The suddenness of the catastrophe is depicted in Isa 40:24. אף בּל (which only occurs here), when followed by וגם in the apodosis (cf., 2Ki 20:4), signifies that even this has not yet taken place when the other also occurs: hence vixdum plantati sunt, etc. The niphal נטּע and the pual זרע denote the hopeful commencement; the poelשׁרשׁ the hopeful continuation. A layer or seed excites the hope of blossom and fruit, more especially when it has taken root; but nothing more is needed than a breath of Jehovah, and it is all over with it (the verb nâshaph is used in this verse, where plants with stems are referred to; a verb with a softer labial, nâshabh, was employed above in connection with grass and flowers). A single withering breath lays them at rest; and by the power of Jehovah there rises a stormy wind, which carries them away like light dry stubble (נשׂא); compare, on the other hand, the verb used in Isa 40:15, viz., tūl = nâtal, to lift up, to keep in the air).

Isa 40:25

The thought of Isa 40:18 now recurs like a refrain, a conclusion being appended to the premises by means of ו, as was the case there. “And to whom will ye compare me, to whom I can be equal? saith the Holy One.” Not haqqâdōsh, because a poetical or oratorical style omits the article wherever it can be dispensed with. The Holy One asks this, and can ask it, because as such He is also exalted above the whole world (Job 15:15; Job 25:5).

Isa 40:26

After the questions in Isa 40:18 and Isa 40:25, which close syllogistically, a third start is made, to demonstrate the incomparable nature of Jehovah. “Lift up your eyes on high, and see: who hath created these things? It is He who bringeth out their host by number, calleth them all by names, because of the greatness of (His)might, and as being strong in power: there is not one that is missing.” Jehovah spoke in Isa 40:25; now the prophet speaks again. We have here the same interchange which occurs in every prophetic book from Deuteronomy downwards, and in which the divine fulness of the prophets is displayed. The answer does not begin with המּוציא, in the sense of “He who brings them out has created them;” but the participle is the predicate to the subject of which the prophet’s soul is full: Jehovah, it is He who brings out the army of stars upon the plane of heaven, as a general leads out his army upon the field of battle, and that bemispâr, by number, counting the innumerable stars, those children of light in armour of light, which meet the eye as it looks up by night. The finite verb יקרא denotes that which takes place every night. He calls them all by name (comp. the derivative passage, Psa 147:4): this He does on account of the greatness and fulness of His might ('ōnı̄m, vires, virtus), and as strong in power, i.e., because He is so. This explanation is simpler than Ewald’s (§293,c), viz., “because of the power (τὸ κρατερὸν) of the Strong One.” The call addressed to the stars that are to rise is the call of the Almighty, and therefore not one of all the innumerable host remains behind. אישׁ individualizes; נעדּר (participle), as in Isa 34:16, suggests the idea of a sheep that is missed from the flock through staying behind. The second part of the address closes here, having demonstrated the folly of idolatry from the infinite superiority of God; and from this the third part deduces consolation for Israel in the midst of its despair.

Isa 40:27

Such of the Israelites are required first of all to be brought to a consciousness of the folly of idolatry are not called Israel at all, because they place themselves on a part with the gōyı̄m. But now the prophet addresses those of little faith, who nevertheless desire salvation; those who are cast down, but not in utter despair. “Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hidden from Jehovah, and my right is overlooked by my God?” The name Jacob stands here at the head, as in Isa 29:22, as being the more exquisite name, and the one which more immediately recalled their patriarchal ancestor. They fancied that Jehovah had completely turned away from them in wrath and weariness. “My way” refers to their thorny way of life; “my right” (mishpâtı̄) to their good right, in opposition to their oppressors. Of all this He appeared to take no notice at all. He seemed to have no thought of vindicating it judicially (on the double min, away from him, see Ges. §154, 3,c).

Isa 40:28

The groundlessness of such despondency is set before them in a double question. “Is it not known to thee, or hast thou not heard, an eternal God is Jehovah, Creator of the ends of the earth: He fainteth not, neither becomes weary; His understanding is unsearchable.” Those who are so desponding ought to know, if not from their own experience, at least from information that had been handed down, that Jehovah, who created the earth from one end to the other, so that even Babylonian was not beyond the range of His vision or the domain of His power, was an eternal God, i.e., a God eternally the same and never varying, who still possessed and manifested the power which He had displayed in the creation. Israel had already passed through a long history, and Jehovah had presided over this, and ruled within it; and He had not so lost His power in consequence, as to have now left His people to themselves. He does not grow faint, as a man would do, who neglected to take the repeated nourishment requisite to sustain the energy of his vital power; nor does He become weary, like a man who has exhausted his capacity for work by over-exertion. And if He had not redeemed His people till then, His people were to know that His course was pure tebhūnâh or understanding, which was in the possession of infallible criteria for determining the right point of time at which to interpose with His aid.

Isa 40:29

Jehovah is so far from becoming faint, that it is He who gives strength to the fainting. “Giving power to the faint, and to the incapable He giveth strength in abundance.” אונים לאין is equivalent to אונים איןלאשׁר אין is used exactly like a privative to form a negative adjective (e.g., Psa 88:5; Pro 25:3).

Isa 40:30-31

Faith is all that is needed to ensure a participation in the strength (עצמה after the form חכמה), which He so richly bestows and so powerfully enhances. “And youths grow faint and weary, and young men suffer a fall. But they who wait for Jehovah gain fresh strength; lift up their wings like eagles; run, and are not weary; go forward, and do not faint.” Even youths, even young men in the early bloom of their morning of life (bachūrı̄m, youths, from בּחר, related to בּכר, בּגר), succumb to the effects of the loss of sustenance or over-exertion (both futures are defective, the first letter being dropped), and any outward obstacle is sufficient to cause them to fall (נכשׁל with inf. abs. kal, which retains what has been stated for contemplation, according to Ges. §131, 3, Anm. 2). In Isa 40:30 the verb stands first, Isa 40:30 being like a concessive clause in relation to Isa 40:31. “Even though this may happen, it is different with those who wait for Jehovah,” i.e., those who believe in Him; for the Old Testament applies to faith a number of synonyms denoting trust, hope, and longing, and thus describes it according to its inmost nature, as fiducia and as hope, directed to the manifestation and completion of that which is hoped for. The Vav cop. introduces the antithesis, as in Isa 40:8. החליף, to cause one to pursue, or new to take the place of the old (Lat. recentare). The expression וגו יעלוּ is supposed by early translators, after the Sept., Targ. Jer., and Saad., to refer to the moulting of the eagle and the growth of the new feathers, which we meet with in Psa 103:5 (cf., Mic 1:16) as a figurative representation of the renewal of youth through grace. But Hitzig correctly observes that העלה is never met with as the causative of the kal used in Isa 5:6, and moreover that it would require נוצה instead of אבר. The proper rendering therefore is, “they cause their wings to rise, or lift their wings high, like the eagles” ('ēbher as in Psa 55:7). Their course of life, which has Jehovah for its object, is as it were possessed of wings. They draw from Him strength upon strength (see Psa 84:8); running does not tire them, nor do they become faint from going ever further and further.

The first address, consisting of three parts (Isa 40:1-11, Isa 40:12-26, Isa 40:27-31), is here brought to a close. Second Prophecy - Isaiah 41

The God of the World’s History and of Prophecy

Jehovah comes forward here, and speaking in the tone in which He already began to speak in Isa 40:25, invites the idolatrous nations to contend with Him, declares the raising up of the conqueror from the east to be His work, and adduces this as the sign that He has been the Author and Guider of the world’s history from the beginning. But what if the question should be asked on the part of the nations, With what right does He do this? The acts of the conqueror prove themselves to be a work of the God who is exalted above the idols, from the fact that they bring destruction to the idolatrous nations, and to the people of Jehovah the long-desired redemption. It is in this that the conclusiveness of the illustration lies. The argument, however, presupposes that Cyrus has already entered upon his victorious course. It is evident at the outset that future events, or events still unfulfilled, would have no force as present proofs. And the words also clearly imply, that the work which Jehovah attributes to Himself, in opposition to the gods of the nations, is already in progress.

Evangelical Predictions. (b. c. 708.)

1 Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. 2 Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the Lord 's hand double for all her sins.

We have here the commission and instructions given, not to this prophet only, but, with him, to all the Lord's prophets, nay, and to all Christ's ministers, to proclaim comfort to God's people. 1. This did not only warrant, but enjoin, this prophet himself to encourage the good people who lived in his own time, who could not but have very melancholy apprehensions of things when they saw Judah and Jerusalem by their daring impieties ripening apace for ruin, and God in his providence hastening ruin upon them. Let them be sure that, notwithstanding all this, God had mercy in store for them. 2. It was especially a direction to the prophets that should live in the time of captivity, when Jerusalem was in ruins; they must encourage the captives to hope for enlargement in due time. 3. Gospel ministers, being employed by the blessed Spirit as comforters, and as helpers of the joy of Christians, are here put in mind of their business. Here we have,

I. Comfortable words directed to God's people in general, v. 1. The prophets have instructions from their God (for he is the Lord God of the holy prophets, Rev. xxii. 6) to comfort the people of God; and the charge is doubled, Comfort you, comfort you—not because the prophets are unwilling to do it (no, it is the most pleasant part of their work), but because sometimes the souls of God's people refuse to be comforted, and their comforters must repeat things again and again, ere they can fasten any thing upon them. Observe here, 1. There are a people in the world that are God's people. 2. It is the will of God that his people should be a comforted people, even in the worst of times. 3. It is the work and business of ministers to do what they can for the comfort of God's people. 4. Words of conviction, such as we had in the former part of this book, must be followed with words of comfort, such as we have here; for he that has torn will heal us.

II. Comfortable words directed to Jerusalem in particular: "Speak to the heart of Jerusalem (v. 2); speak that which will revive her heart, and be a cordial to her and to all that belong to her and wish her well. Do not whisper it, but cry unto her: cry aloud, to show saints their comforts as well as to show sinners their transgressions; make her hear it:" 1. "That the days of her trouble are numbered and finished: Her warfare is accomplished, the set time of her servitude; the campaign is now at an end, and she shall retire into quarters of refreshment." Human life is a warfare (Job vii. 1); the Christian life much more. But the struggle will not last always; the warfare will be accomplished, and then the good soldiers shall not only enter into rest, but be sure of their pay. 2. "That the cause of her trouble is removed, and, when that is taken away, the effect will cease. Tell her that her iniquity is pardoned, God is reconciled to her, and she shall no longer be treated as one guilty before him." Nothing can be spoken more comfortably than this, Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee. Troubles are then removed in love when sin is pardoned. 3. "That the end of her trouble is answered: She has received of the Lord double for the cure of all her sins, sufficient, and more than sufficient, to separate between her and her idols," the worship of which was the great sin for which God had a controversy with them, and from which he designed to reclaim them by their captivity in Babylon: and it had that effect upon them; it begat in them a rooted antipathy to idolatry, and was physic doubly strong for the purging out of that iniquity. Or it may be taken as the language of the divine compassion: His soul was grieved for the misery of Israel (Judges x. 16), and, like a tender father, since he spoke against them he earnestly remembered them (Jer. xxxi. 20), and was ready to say that he had given them too much correction. They, being very penitent, acknowledged that God has punished them less than their iniquities deserved; but he, being very pitiful, owned, in a manner, that he had punished them more than they deserved. True penitents have indeed, in Christ and his sufferings, received of the Lord's hand double for all their sins; for the satisfaction Christ made by his death was of such an infinite value that it was more than double to the demerits of sin; for God spared not his own Son.

Evangelical Predictions. (b. c. 708.)

3 The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord , make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 4 Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: 5 And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. 6 The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: 7 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. 8 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.

The time to favour Zion, yea, the set time, having come, the people of God must be prepared, by repentance and faith, for the favours designed them; and, in order to call them to both these, we have here the voice of one crying in the wilderness, which may be applied to those prophets who were with the captives in their wilderness-state, and who, when they saw the day of their deliverance dawn, called earnestly upon them to prepare for it, and assured them that all the difficulties which stood in the way of their deliverance should be got over. It is a good sign that mercy is preparing for us if we find God's grace preparing us for it, Ps. x. 17. But it must be applied to John the Baptist; for, though God was the speaker, he was the voice of one crying in the wilderness, and his business was to prepare the way of the Lord, to dispose men's minds for the reception and entertainment of the gospel of Christ. The way of the Lord is prepared,

I. By repentance for sin; that was it which John Baptist preached to all Judah and Jerusalem (Matt. iii. 2, 5), and thereby made ready a people prepared for the Lord, Luke i. 17.

1. The alarm is given; let all take notice of it at their peril; God is coming in a way of mercy, and we must prepare for him, v. 3-5. If we apply it to their captivity, it may be taken as a promise that, whatever difficulties lie in their way, when they return they shall be removed. This voice in the wilderness (divine power going along with it) sets pioneers on work to level the roads. But it may be taken as a call to duty, and it is the same duty that we are called to, in preparation for Christ's entrance into our souls. (1.) We must get into such a frame of spirit as will dispose us to receive Christ and his gospel: "Prepare you the way of the Lord; prepare yourselves for him, and let all that be suppressed which would be an obstruction to his entrance. Make room for Christ: Make straight a highway for him." If he prepare the end for us, we ought surely to prepare the way for him. Prepare for the Saviour; lift up your heads, O you gates! Ps. xxiv. 7, 9. Prepare for the salvation, the great salvation, and other minor deliverances. Let us get to be fit for them, and then God will work them out. Let us not stand in our own light, nor put a bar in our own door, but find, or make, a highway for him, even in that which was desert ground. This is that for which he waits to be gracious. (2.) We must get our hearts levelled by divine grace. Those that are hindered from comfort in Christ by their dejections and despondencies are the valleys that must be exalted. Those that are hindered from comfort in Christ by a proud conceit of their own merit and worth are the mountains and hills that must be made low. Those that have entertained prejudices against the word and ways of God, that are untractable, and disposed to thwart and contradict even that which is plain and easy because it agrees not with their corrupt inclinations and secular interests, are the crooked that must be made straight and the rough places that must be made plain. Let but the gospel of Christ have a fair hearing, and it cannot fail of acceptance. This prepares the way of the Lord; and thus God will by his grace prepare his own way in all the vessels of mercy, whose hearts he opens as he did Lydia's.

2. When this is done the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, v. 5. (1.) When the captives are prepared for deliverance Cyrus shall proclaim it, and those shall have the benefit of it, and those only, whose hearts the Lord shall stir up with courage and resolution to break through the discouragements that lay in their way, and to make nothing of the hills, and valleys, and all the rough places. (2.) When John Baptist has for some time preached repentance, mortification, and reformation, and so made ready a people prepared for the Lord (Luke i. 17), then the Messiah himself shall be revealed in his glory, working miracles, which John did not, and by his grace, which is his glory, binding up and healing with consolations those whom John had wounded with convictions. And this revelation of divine glory shall be a light to lighten the Gentiles. All flesh shall see it together, and not the Jews only; they shall see and admire it, see it and bid it welcome; as the return out of captivity was taken notice of by the neighbouring nations, Ps. cxxvi. 2. And it shall be the accomplishment of the word of God, not one iota or tittle of which shall fall to the ground: The mouth of the Lord has spoken it, and therefore the hand of the Lord will effect it.

II. By confidence in the word of the Lord, and not in any creature. The mouth of the Lord having spoken it, the voice has this further to cry (he that has ears to hear let him hear it), The word of our God shall stand for ever, v. 8.

1. By this accomplishment of the prophecies and promises of salvation, and the performance of them to the utmost in due time, it appears that the word of the Lord is sure and what may be safely relied on. Then we are prepared for deliverance when we depend entirely upon the word of God, build our hopes on that, with an assurance that it will not make us ashamed: in a dependence upon this word we must be brought to own that all flesh is grass, withering and fading. (1.) The power of man, when it does appear against the deliverance, is not to be feared; for it shall be as grass before the word of the Lord: it shall wither and be trodden down. The insulting Babylonians, who promise themselves that the desolations of Jerusalem shall be perpetual, are but as grass which the spirit of the Lord blows upon, makes nothing of, but blasts all its glory; for the word of the Lord, which promises their deliverance, shall stand for ever, and it is not in the power of their enemies to hinder the execution of it. (2.) The power of man, when it would appear for the deliverance, is not to be trusted to; for it is but as grass in comparison with the word of the Lord, which is the only firm foundation for us to build our hope upon. When God is about to work salvation for his people he will take them off from depending upon creatures, and looking for it from hills and mountains. They shall fail them, and their expectations from them shall be frustrated: The Spirit of the Lord shall blow upon them; for God will have no creature to be a rival with him for the hope and confidence of his people; and, as it is his word only that shall stand for ever, so in that word only our faith must stand. When we are brought to this, then, and not till then, we are fit for mercy.

2. The word of our God, that glory of the Lord which is now to be revealed, the gospel, and that grace which is brought with it to us and wrought by it in us, shall stand for ever; and this is the satisfaction of all believers, when they find all their creature-comforts withering and fading like grass. Thus the apostle applies it to the word which by the gospel is preached unto us, and which lives and abides for ever as the incorruptible seed by which we are born again, 1 Pet. i. 23-25. To prepare the way of the Lord we must be convinced, (1.) Of the vanity of the creature, that all flesh is grass, weak and withering. We ourselves are so, and therefore cannot save ourselves; all our friends are so, and therefore are unable to save us. All the beauty of the creature, which might render it amiable, is but as the flower of grass, soon blasted, and therefore cannot recommend us to God and to his acceptance. We are dying creatures; all our comforts in this word are dying comforts, and therefore cannot be the felicity of our immortal souls. We must look further for a salvation, look further for a portion. (2.) Of the validity of the promise of God. We must be convinced that the word of the Lord can do that for us which all flesh cannot—that, forasmuch as it stands for ever, it will furnish us with a happiness that will run parallel with the duration of our souls, which must live for ever; for the things that are not seen, but must be believed, are eternal.

Evangelical Predictions. (b. c. 708.)

9 O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God! 10 Behold, the Lord God will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him: behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him. 11 He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.

It was promised (v. 5) that the glory of the Lord shall be revealed; that is it with the hopes of which God's people must be comforted. Now here we are told,

I. How it shall be revealed, v. 9. 1. It shall be revealed to Zion and Jerusalem; notice shall be given of it to the remnant that are left in Zion and Jerusalem, the poor of the land, who were vine-dressers and husbandmen; it shall be told them that their brethren shall return to them. This shall be told also to the captives who belonged to Zion and Jerusalem, and retained their affection for them. Zion is said to dwell with the daughter of Babylon (Zech. ii. 7); and there she receives notice of Cyrus's gracious proclamation; and so the margin reads it, O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion, &c., meaning the persons who were employed in publishing that proclamation; let them do it with a good will, let them make the country ring of it, and let them tell it to the sons of Zion in their own language, saying to them, Behold your God. 2. It shall be published by Zion and Jerusalem (so the text reads it); those that remain there, or that have already returned, when they find the deliverance proceeding towards perfection, let them proclaim it in the most public places, whence they may be best heard by all the cities of Judah; let them proclaim it as loudly as they can: let them lift up their voice with strength, and not be afraid of overstraining themselves; let them not be afraid lest the enemy should hear it and quarrel with them, or lest it should not prove true, or not such good tidings as at first it appeared; let them say to the cities of Judah, and all the inhabitants of the country, Behold your God. When God is going on with the salvation of his people, let them industriously spread the news among their friends, let them tell them that it is God that has done it; whoever were the instruments, God was the author; it is their God, a God in covenant with them, and he does it as theirs, and they will reap the benefit and comfort of it. "Behold him, take notice of his hand in it, and look above second causes; behold, the God you have long looked for has come at last (ch. xxv. 9): This is our God, we have waited for him." This may refer to the invitation which was sent forth from Jerusalem to the cities of Judah, as soon as they had set up an altar, immediately upon their return out of captivity, to come and join with them in their sacrifices, Ezra iii. 2-4. "When the worship of God is set up again, send notice of it to all your brethren, that they may share with you in the comfort of it." But this was to have its full accomplishment in the apostles' public and undaunted preaching of the gospel to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. The voice crying in the wilderness gave notice that he was coming; but now notice is given that he has come. Behold the Lamb of God; take a full view of your Redeemer. Behold your King, behold your God.

II. What that glory is which shall be revealed. "Your God will come, will show himself,"

1. "With the power and greatness of a prince (v. 10): He will come with strong hand, too strong to be obstructed, though it may be opposed. His strong hand shall subdue his people to himself, and shall restrain and conquer his and their enemies. He will come who is strong enough to break through all the difficulties that lie in his way." Our Lord Jesus was full of power, a mighty Saviour. Some read, it, He will come against the mighty one, and overpower him, overcome him. Satan is the strong man armed; but our Lord Jesus is stronger than he, and he shall make it to appear that he is so, for, (1.) He shall reign in defiance of all opposition: His arm shall rule, shall overrule for him, for the fulfilling of his counsels, to his own glory; for he is his own end. (2.) He shall recompense to all according to their works, as a righteous Judge: His reward is with him; he brings along with him, as a returning prince, punishments for the rebels and preferments for his loyal subjects. (3.) He shall proceed and accomplish his purpose: His work is before him, that is, he knows perfectly well what he has to do, which way to go about it, and how to compass it. He himself knows what he will do.

2. "With the pity and tenderness of a shepherd," v. 11. God is the Shepherd of Israel (Ps. lxxx. 1); Christ is the good Shepherd, John x. 11. The same that rules with the strong hand of a prince leads and feeds with the kind hand of a shepherd. (1.) He takes care of all his flock, the little flock: He shall feed his flock like a shepherd. His word is food for his flock to feed on; his ordinances are fields for them to feed in; his ministers are under-shepherds that are appointed to attend them. (2.) He takes particular care of those that most need his care, the lambs that are weak, and cannot help themselves, and are unaccustomed to hardship, and those that are with young, that are therefore heavy, and, if any harm be done them, are in danger of casting their young. He particularly takes care for a succession, that it may not fail or be cut off. The good Shepherd has tender care for children that are towardly and hopeful, for young converts, that are setting out in the way to heaven, for weak believers, and those that are of a sorrowful spirit. These are the lambs of his flock, that shall be sure to want nothing that their case requires. [1.] He will gather them in the arms of his power; his strength shall be made perfect in their weakness, 2 Cor. xii. 9. He will gather them in when they wander, gather them up when they fall, gather them together when they are dispersed, and gather them home to himself at last; and all this with his own arm, out of which none shall be able to pluck them, John x. 28. [2.] He will carry them in the bosom of his love and cherish them there. When they tire or are weary, are sick and faint, when they meet with foul ways, he will carry them on, and take care they are not left behind. [3.] He will gently lead them. By his word he requires no more service, and by his providence he inflicts no more trouble, than he will fit them for; for he considers their frame.

Evangelical Predictions. (b. c. 708.)

12 Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? 13 Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord , or being his counsellor hath taught him? 14 With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and showed to him the way of understanding? 15 Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing. 16 And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering. 17 All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity.

The scope of these verses is to show what a great and glorious being the Lord Jehovah is, who is Israel's God and Saviour. It comes in here, 1. To encourage his people that were captives in Babylon to hope in him, and to depend upon him for deliverance, though they were ever so weak and their oppressors ever so strong. 2. To engage them to cleave to him, and not to turn aside after other gods; for there are none to be compared with him. 3. To possess all those who receive the glad tidings of redemption by Christ with a holy awe and reverence of God. Though it was said (v. 9), Behold your God, and (v. 11) He shall feed his flock like a shepherd, yet these condescensions of his grace must not be thought of with any diminution to the transcendencies of his glory. Let us see how great our God is, and fear before him; for,

I. His power is unlimited, and what no creature can compare with, much less contend with, v. 12. 1. He has a vast reach. View the celestial globe, and you are astonished at the extent of it; but the great God metes the heavens with a span; to him they are but a hand-breadth, so large-handed is he. View the terraqueous globe, and he has the command of that too. All the waters in the world he can measure in the hollow of his hand, where we can hold but a little water; and the dry land he easily manages, for he comprehends the dust of the earth in a measure, or with his three fingers; it is no more to him than a pugil, or that which we take up between our thumb and two fingers. 2. He has a vast strength, and can as easily move mountains and hills as the tradesman heaves his goods into the scales and out of them again; he poises them with his hand as exactly as if he weighed them in a pair of balances. This may refer to the work of creation, when the heavens were stretched out as exactly as that which is spanned, and the earth and waters were put together in just proportions, as if they had been measured, and the mountains made of such a weight as to serve for ballast to the globe, and no more. Or it may refer to the work of providence (which is a continued creation) and the consistency of all the creatures with each other.

II. His wisdom is unsearchable, and what no creature can give either information or direction to, v. 13, 14. As none can do what God has done and does, so none can assist him in the doing of it or suggest any thing to him which he thought not of. When the Lord by his Spirit made the world (Job xxvi. 13) there was none that directed his Spirit, or gave him any advice, either what to do or how to do it. Nor does he need any counsellor to direct him in the government of the world, nor is there any with whom he consults, as the wisest kings do with those that know law and judgment, Esther i. 13. God needs not to be told what is done, for he knows it perfectly; nor needs he be advised concerning what is to be done, for he knows both the right end and the proper means. This is much insisted upon here, because the poor captives had no politicians among them to manage their concerns at court or to put them in a way of gaining their liberty. "No matter," says the prophet, "you have a God to act for you, who needs not the assistance of statesmen." In the great work of our redemption by Christ matters were concerted before the world was, when there was one to teach God in the path of judgment, 1 Cor. ii. 7.

III. The nations of the world are nothing in comparison of him, v. 15, 17. Take them all together, all the great and mighty nations of the earth, kings the most pompous, kingdoms the most populous, both the most wealthy; take the isles, the multitude of them, the isles of the Gentiles: Before him, when they stand in competition with him or in opposition to him, they are as a drop of the bucket compared with the vast ocean, or the small dust of the balance (which does not serve to turn it, and therefore is not regarded, it is so small) in comparison with all the dust of the earth. He takes them up, and throws them away from him, as a very little thing, not worth speaking of. They are all in his eye as nothing, as if they had no being at all; for they add nothing to his perfection and all-sufficiency. They are counted by him, and are to be counted by us in comparison of him, less than nothing, and vanity. When he pleases, he can as easily bring them all into nothing as at first he brought them out of nothing. When God has work to do he values not either the assistance or the resistance of any creature. They are all vanity; the word that is used for the chaos (Gen. i. 2), to which they will at last be reduced. Let this beget in us high thoughts of God and low thoughts of this world, and engage us to make God, and not man, both our fear and our hope. This magnifies God's love to the world, that, though it is of such small account and value with him, yet, for the redemption of it, he gave his only-begotten Son, John iii. 16.

IV. The services of the church can make no addition to him nor do they bear any proportion to his infinite perfections (v. 16): Lebanon is not sufficient to burn; not the wood of it, to be for the fuel of the altar, though it be so well stocked with cedars; not the beasts of it, to be for sacrifices, though it be so well stocked with cattle, v. 16. Whatever we honour God with, it falls infinitely short of the merit of his perfection; for he is exalted far above all blessing and praise, all burnt-offerings and sacrifices.

Vanity of Idols. (b. c. 708.)

18 To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him? 19 The workman melteth a graven image, and the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold, and casteth silver chains. 20 He that is so impoverished that he hath no oblation chooseth a tree that will not rot; he seeketh unto him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image, that shall not be moved. 21 Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth? 22 It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in: 23 That bringeth the princes to nothing; he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity. 24 Yea, they shall not be planted; yea, they shall not be sown: yea, their stock shall not take root in the earth: and he shall also blow upon them, and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble. 25 To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One. 26 Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth.

The prophet here reproves those, 1. Who represented God by creatures, and so changed his truth into a lie and his glory into shame, who made images and then said that they resembled God, and paid their homage to them accordingly. 2. Who put creatures in the place of God, who feared them more than God, as if they were a match for him, or loved them more than God, as if they were fit to be rivals with him. Twice the challenge is here made, To whom will you liken God? v. 18, and again v. 25. The Holy One himself says, To whom will you liken me? This shows the folly and absurdity, (1.) Of corporal idolatry, making visible images of him who is invisible, imagining the image to be animated by the deity, and the deity to be presentiated by the image, which, as it was an instance of the corruption of the human nature, so it was an intolerable injury to the honour of the divine nature. (2.) Of spiritual idolatry, making creatures equal with God in our affections. Proud people make themselves equal with God; covetous people make their money equal with God; and whatever we esteem or love, fear or hope in, more than God, that creature we equal with God, which is the highest affront imaginable to him who is God over all. Now, to show the absurdity of this,

I. The prophet describes idols as despicable things and worthy of the greatest contempt (v. 19, 20): "Look upon the better sort of them, which rich people set up, and worship; they are made of some base metal, cast into what shape the founder pleases, and that is gilded, or overlaid with plates of gold, that it may pass for a golden image. It is a creature; for the workman made it; therefore it is not God, Hos. viii. 6. It depended upon his will whether it should be a god at all, and of what shape it should be. It is a cheat; for it is gold on the outside, but within it is lead or copper, in this indeed representing the deities, that they were not what they seemed to be, and deceived their admirers. How despicable then are the worst sort of them—the poor men's gods! He that is so impoverished that he has scarcely a sacrifice to offer to his god when he has made him will yet not be without an enshrined deity of his own; and, though he cannot procure one of brass or stone, he will have a wooden one rather than none, and for that purpose chooses a tree that will not soon rot, and of that he will have his graven image made. Both agree to have their image well fastened, that they may not be robbed of it. The better sort have silver chains to fix theirs with; and, though it be but a wooden image, care is taken that it shall not be moved." Let us pause a little and see, 1. How these idolaters shame themselves, and what a reproach they put upon their own reason, in dreaming that gods of their own making (Nehushtans, pieces of brass or logs of wood) should be able to do them any kindness. Thus vain were they in their imaginations; and how was their foolish heart darkened! 2. See how these idolaters shame us, who worship the only living and true God. They spared no cost upon their idols; we grudge that as waste which is spent in the service of our God. They took care that their idols should not be moved; we wilfully provoke our God to depart from us.

II. He describes God as infinitely great, and worthy of the highest veneration; so that between him and idols, whatever competition there may be, there is no comparison. To prove the greatness of God he appeals,

1. To what they had heard of him by the hearing of the ear, and the consent of all ages and nations concerning him (v. 21): "Have you not known by the very light of nature? Has it not been told you by your fathers and teachers, according to the constant tradition received from their ancestors and predecessors, even from the beginning?" (Those notices of God are as ancient as the world.) "Have you not understood it as always acknowledged from the foundation of the earth, that God is a great God, and a great King above all gods?" It has been a truth universally admitted that there is an infinite Being who is the fountain of all being. This is understood not only ever since the beginning of the world, but from and by the origin of the universe. It is founded upon the foundation of the earth. The invisible things of God are clearly seen from the creation of the world, Rom. i. 20. Thou mayest not only ask thy father, and he shall tell thee this, and thy elders (Deut. xxxii. 7); but ask those that go by the way (Job xxi. 29), ask the first man you meet, and he will say the same. Some read it, Will you not know? Will you not hear it? For those that are ignorant of this are willingly ignorant; the light shines in their faces, but they shut their eyes against it. Now that which is here said of God is, (1.) That he has the command of all the creatures. The heaven and the earth themselves are under his management: He sits upon the circle, or globe, of the earth, v. 22. He that has the special residence of his glory in the upper world maintains a dominion over this lower world, gives law to it, and directs all the motions of it to his own glory. He sits undisturbed upon the earth, and so establishes it. He is still stretching out the heavens, his power and providence keep them still stretched out, and will do so till the day comes that they shall be rolled together like a scroll. He spreads them out as easily as we draw a curtain to and fro, opening these curtains in the morning and drawing them close again at night. And the heaven is to this earth as a tent to dwell in; it is a canopy drawn over our heads, et quod tegit omnia cœlum—and it encircles all.—Ovid. See Ps. civ. 2. (2.) That the children of men, even the greatest and mightiest, are as nothing before him. The numerous inhabitants of this earth are in his eye as grasshoppers in ours, so little and inconsiderable, of such small value, of such little use, and so easily crushed. Proud men's lifting up themselves is but like the grasshopper's leap; in an instant they must stoop down to the earth again. If the spies thought themselves grasshoppers before the sons of Anak (Num. xiii. 33), what are we before the great God? Grasshoppers live but awhile, and live carelessly, not like the ant; so do the most of men. (3.) That those who appear and act against him, how formidable soever they may be to their fellow-creatures, will certainly be humble and brought down by the mighty hand of God, v. 23, 24. Princes and judges, who have great authority, and abuse it to the support of oppression and injustice, make nothing of those about them; as for all their enemies they puff at them (Ps. x. 5; xii. 5); but, when the great God takes them to task, he brings them to nothing; he humbles them, and tames them, and makes them as vanity, little regarded, neither feared nor loved. He makes them utterly unable to stand before his judgments, which shall either, [1.] Prevent their settlement in their authority: They shall not be planted; they shall not be sown; and those are the two ways of propagating plants, either by seed or slips. Nay, if they should gain a little interest, and so be planted or sown, yet their stock shall not take root in the earth, they shall not continue long in power. Eliphaz saw the foolish taking root, but suddenly cursed their habitation. And then how soon is the fig-tree withered away! Or, [2.] He will blast them when they think they are settled. He does but blow upon them, and then they shall wither, and come to nothing, and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble. For God's wrath, though it seem at first to blow slightly upon them, will soon become a mighty whirlwind. When God judges he will overcome. Those that will not bow before him cannot stand before him.

2. He appeals to what their eyes saw of him (v. 26): "Lift up your eyes on high; be not always poring on this earth" (O curvæ in terras animæ et cœlestium inanes!—Degenerate minds, that can bend so towards the earth, having nothing celestial in them!), "but sometimes look up" (Os homini sublime dedit, cœlumque tueri jussit—Heaven gave to man an erect countenance, and bade him gaze on the stars); "behold the glorious lights of heaven, consider who has created them. They neither made nor marshalled themselves; doubtless, therefore, there is a God that gave them their being, power, and motion." What we see of the creature should lead us to the Creator. The idolaters, when they lifted up their eyes and beheld the hosts of heaven, being wholly immerged in sense, looked no further, but worshipped them, Deut. iv. 19; Job xxxi. 26. Therefore the prophet here directs us to make use of our reason as well as our senses, and to consider who created them, and to pay our homage to him. Give him the glory of his sovereignty over them—He brings out their host by number, as a general draws out the squadrons and battalions of his army; of the knowledge he has of them—He calls them all by names, proper names, according as their place and influence are (Ps. cxlvii. 4); and of the use he makes of them; when he calls them out to any service, so obsequious are they that, by the greatness of his might, not one of them fails, but, as when the stars in their courses fought against Sisera, every one does that to which he is appointed. To make these creatures therefore rivals with God, which are such ready servants to him, is an injury to them as well as an affront to him.

Jehovah's Grandeur and Compassion. (b. c. 708.)

27 Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the Lord , and my judgment is passed over from my God? 28 Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord , the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. 29 He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. 30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: 31 But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

Here, I. The prophet reproves the people of God, who are now supposed to be captives in Babylon for their unbelief and distrust of God, and the dejections and despondencies of their spirit under their affliction (v. 27): "Why sayest thou, O Jacob! to thyself and to those about thee, My way is hidden from the Lord? Why dost thou make hard and melancholy conclusions concerning thyself and thy present case as if the latter were desperate?" 1. The titles he here gives them were enough to shame them out of their distrusts: O Jacob! O Israel! Let them remember whence they took these names—from one who had found God faithful to him and kind in all his straits; and why they bore these names—as God's professing people, a people in covenant with him. 2. The way of reproving them is by reasoning with them: "Why? Consider whether thou hast any ground to say so." Many of our foolish frets and foolish fears would vanish before a strict enquiry into the causes of them. 3. That which they are reproved for is an ill-natured, ill-favoured, word they spoke of God, as if he had cast them off. There seems to be an emphasis laid upon their saying it: Why sayest thou and speakest thou? It is bad to have evil thoughts rise in our mind, but it is worse to put an imprimatur—a sanction to them, and turn them into evil words. David reflects with regret upon what he said in his haste, when he was in distress. 4. The ill word they said was a word of despair concerning their present calamitous condition. They were ready to conclude, (1.) That God would not heed them: "My way is hidden from the Lord; he takes no notice of our straits, nor concerns himself any more in our concernments. There are such difficulties in our case that even divine wisdom and power will be nonplussed." A man whose way is hidden is one whom God has hedged in, Job iii. 23. (2.) That God could not help them: "My judgment is passed over from my God; my case is past relief, so far past it that God himself cannot redress the grievances of it. Our bones are dried." Ezek. xxxvii. 11.

II. He reminds them of that which, if duly considered, was sufficient to silence all those fears and distrust. For their conviction, as before for the conviction of idolaters (v. 21), he appeals to what they had known and what they had heard. Jacob and Israel were a knowing people, or might have been, and their knowledge came by hearing; for Wisdom cried in their chief places of concourse. Now, among other things, they had heard that God had spoken once, twice, yea, many a time they had heard it, That power belongs unto God (Ps. lxii. 11), That is,

1. He is himself an almighty God. He must needs be so, for he is the everlasting God, even Jehovah. He was from eternity; he will be to eternity; and therefore with him there is no deficiency, no decay. He has his being of himself, and therefore all his perfections must needs be boundless. He is without beginning of days or end of life, and therefore with him there is no change. He is also the Creator of the ends of the earth, that is, of the whole earth and all that is in it from end to end. He therefore is the rightful owner and ruler of all, and must be concluded to have an absolute power over all and an all-sufficiency to help his people in their greatest straits. Doubtless he is still as able to save his church as he was at first to make the world. (1.) He has wisdom to contrive the salvation, and that wisdom is never at a loss: There is no searching of his understanding, so as to countermine the counsels of it and defeat its intentions; no, nor so as to determine what he will do, for he has ways by himself, ways in the sea. None can say, "Thus far God's wisdom can go, and no further;" for, when we know not what to do, he knows. (2.) He has power to bring about the salvation, and that power is never exhausted: He faints not, nor is weary; he upholds the whole creation, and governs all the creatures, and is neither tired nor toiled; and therefore, no doubt, he has power to relieve his church, when it is brought ever so low, without weakness or weariness.

2. He gives strength and power to his people, and helps them by enabling them to help themselves. He that is the strong God is the strength of Israel. (1.) He can help the weak, v. 29. Many a time he gives power to the faint, to those that are ready to faint away; and to those that have no might he not only gives, but increases strength, as there is more and more occasion for it. Many out of bodily weakness are wonderfully recovered, and made strong, by the providence of God: and many that are feeble in spirit, timorous and faint-hearted, unfit for services and sufferings, are yet strengthened by the grace of God with all might in the inward man. To those who are sensible of their weakness, and ready to acknowledge they have no might, God does in a special manner increase strength; for, when we are weak in ourselves, then are we strong in the Lord. (2.) He will help the willing, will help those who, in a humble dependence upon him, help themselves, and will do well for those who do their best, v. 30, 31. Those who trust to their own sufficiency, and are so confident of it that they neither exert themselves to the utmost nor seek unto God for his grace, are the youth and the young men, who are strong, but are apt to think themselves stronger than they are. And they shall faint and be weary, yea, they shall utterly fail in their services, in their conflicts, and under their burdens; they shall soon be made to see the folly of trusting to themselves. But those that wait on the Lord, who make conscience of their duty to him, and by faith rely upon him and commit themselves to his guidance, shall find that God will not fail them. [1.] They shall have grace sufficient for them: They shall renew their strength as their work is renewed, as there is new occasion; they shall be anointed, and their lamps supplied, with fresh oil. God will be their arm every morning, ch. xxxiii. 2. If at any time they have been foiled and weakened they shall recover themselves, and so renew their strength. Heb. They shall change their strength, as their work is changed—doing work, suffering work; they shall have strength to labour, strength to wrestle, strength to resist, strength to bear. As the day so shall the strength be. [2.] They shall use this grace for the best purposes. Being strengthened, First, They shall soar upward, upward towards God: They shall mount up with wings like eagles, so strongly, so swiftly, so high and heaven-ward. In the strength of divine grace, their souls shall ascend above the world, and even enter into the holiest. Pious and devout affections are the eagles' wings on which gracious souls mount up, Ps. xxv. 1. Secondly, They shall press forward, forward towards heaven. They shall walk, they shall run, the way of God's commandments, cheerfully and with alacrity (they shall not be weary), constantly and with perseverance (they shall not faint); and therefore in due season they shall reap. Let Jacob and Israel therefore, in their greatest distresses, continue waiting upon God, and not despair of timely and effectual relief and succour from him.

CHAP. XL.

Ver. 1. COmfortye, comfort ye my people] Hitherto hath been the Comminatory part of this Prophecy: followeth now the Conſolatory: Here beginneth the Goſpel of the Prophet Iſaiah, and holdeth on to the end of the book. The good people of his time had been forewarned by the foregoing Chapter of the Babylonian Captivity. Thoſe in after-times, not only during the Captivity, but under Antiochus and other Tyrants, were ready to think themſelves utterly caſt off, becauſe heavily afflicted. See ver. 27. of this Chapter, with Lam. 5.22. Here therefore command is given for their comfort, and that Goſpel be preached to the penitent: the word here uſed ſignifieth, firſt to repent, then to comfort, 1 Sam. 5. 35. 1 Sam. 12.24. This our Prophet had been a Boanerges, a thundering Preacher all the fore-part of his life (ſee one inſtance for all chap. 24. where Pericles-like, fulgurat, intonat, totam terram permiſcet, &c.) Now toward his latter end, and when he had one foot in the grave, the other in Heaven, he grew more mellow and melleous, (as did likewiſe Mr. Lever, Mr. Perkins, Mr. Whately, and ſome other eminent and earneſt Preachers that might be named) ſetting himſelf wholly in a manner, to comfort the abject and feeble minded;Sunt eutem omnia plena magnis adfectibus. Hyp. which alſo he doth with ſingular dexterity and efficacy. This redoubled Comfort ye, is not without its Emphaſis: but that which followeth, ver. 2. is a very hive of heavenly honey.

Ver. 2. Speak ye comfortably] Speak to the heart, as Gen. 34.3. Hoſ. 2.14. Chear her up▪ ſpeak to her with utmoſt earneſtneſs, that your words may work upon her and ſtick by her: do it ſolidly, not frigidly.

That her warfare is accompliſhed] Militiam, not Malitiam, as the Vulgar hath it: The word ſignifieth alſo a ſet term of time, See Dan. 9.2. and Gal. 4.4. God hath limited the Saints ſufferings, Rev. 2.10. Some by warfare here underſtand that hard and troubleſome Pedagogy of Moſes Law; that yoke importable, Act. 15.10. taken away by Chriſt.

That her iniquity is pardoned] Heb. her iniquity is accepted: Perfectam eſſe paenam ejus, ſo Piſcator rendreth it. She might be under Gods hand, though her ſins were pardoned. The Palſy-man heard, Son, thy ſins are forgiven thee, ſome while before he heard, Take up thy bed and walk.

That ſhe hath received of the Lords hand double] i. e. Abundantly and in a large meaſure, ſatis ſuperque, ſo much as to her merciful Father ſeemeth over and above, more than enough. She hath received double for all her ſins: and yet death is the juſt hire of the leaſt ſin, Rom. 6.23. But this is the language of Gods compaſſions rolled together and kindled into repentings; Jeruſalem her ſelf was of another judgement, Ezra. 9.13. Our God hath puniſhed us leſſe than our ſins: and yet he reckoneth that we fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Chriſt, Col. 1.24.

Ver. 3. The voyce of him that cryeth] See Mat. 3.3. John 1.25. with the notes there: but Luke citeth this text more fully than the other Evangeliſts, applying it to the Baptiſt crying in the wilderneſſe, ſc. of Judea, where he firſt preached, or (as ſome ſenſe it) in the ears of a waſte and wild people. Hereby is meant the world, ſaith one, word of Gods grace, barren in all vertue, having no pleaſing abode,Diod. nor ſure direction of any good way in it, being full of horrour, and accurſed.

Ver. 4. Every valley ſhall be exalted] Termes taken from the cuſtome of Princes coming into a place; viz. to have their way cleared, and paſſages facilitated. See on Mat. 3.4.

Ver. 5. And the glory of the Lord ſhall be revealed] i. e. Jeſus Chriſt (the Lord of glory, Jam. 2.1.) ſhall appear in the fleſh. Some interpreters underſtand this whole Sermon ad literam concerning Chriſt and Redemption wrought by him: yet with an alluſion to the Jewes deliverance out of Babylon; for this was a type of that, like as Cyrus alſo was of Chriſt.

Ver. 6. The voyce] Or a voyce, ſc. in viſion.

What ſhall I cry? All fleſh is graſſe] This is taught by every Philoſopher, ſaith Saſbors[illegible: 1 letter]: but never is it taught effectually, till cryed to the heart by Gods Word and Spirit: for which reaſon alſo it is not uttered here without a Preparative, by way of Dialogue, to ſtir up to attention.

All fleſh is graſſe] Not only as graſſe, but is graſſe: we are all but dying men; death hath already taken hold of us, and doth every day feed upon us inſenſibly. To live is but to lye a dying. The Jews at this day, when they return from burying a corps, caſt graſſe over their heads; either to ſignifie that all fleſh is graſſe; or elſe, their hope of a Reſurrection.

And all the goodlineſſe thereof] Any thing eximious or excellent in man muſt needs vaniſh, when the glory of the Lord is revealed, ver. 5. The ſight of God makes all elſe little.

As the flower of the field] Which is more apt to be blaſted, cropt, or trodden down, then the flower of the garden.

Eſſe, fuiſſe, fore, tria florida ſunt ſine flore: Nam ſimul omne perit, quod fuit, eſt, & erit.

Ver. 7. Becauſe the ſpirit of the Lord bloweth upon it] Or, when the breath of the Lord bloweth upon it. God can eaſily blow men to deſtruction, diſſipate them as ſo many vile duſtheaps, Job 4.9. and 34.14, 15. Pſal. 104.29. Dan. 2.34, 35. Zach. 4.6.

Surely the people is graſſe] Have we not heard? have we not ſeen from the beginning? doth not every dayes experience ſeal to it, that all fleſh is graſſe? yea hath not God oft heard our atteſtations? We ſhake our heads, we confeſſe it is true, &c. and yet we lay it not rightly to heart, though ſo deeply aſſevered and aſſured us.

Ver, 8. But the Word of our God ſhall ſtand for ever] q. d. Though the Elect alſo as well as others are graſs, fraile and fading creatures, yet the grace of God wrought in their hearts by the Goſpel, is ſtable and laſting, See 1 Pet. 1.23. with the Note. And ſo neceſſary is this whole doctrine here delivered, that the Miniſters of the Goſpel are commanded here not to write it only, but to ſpeak it: nor that only, but to cry it alſo, with all poſſible both affection and power of inforcement.

Ver. 9. O Zion that bringeſt good tydings] That Evangeliſt: The Goſpel is the ſumme of all the good news in the world. Chriſts Incarnation (Biſher the word here uſed, cometh of Baſhar, which ſignifieth Fleſh) was glad tydings of great joy to all people, Luk. 2.10.

Get thee up into the high mountain] Zion was it ſelf an high mountain: yet is bidden to aſcend into an higher, for the better promulgation of the Goſpel.

Lift it up, be not afraid] Viz. for perſecution which is Evangelii genius, the evil Angel that doggeth the Goſpel at the heeles, as Calvin wrote to the French King.

Behold your God] Behold the Meſſias, who hath been ſo long expected, is now exhibited.

Ver. 10. Behold the Lord God will come with ſtrong hand] Or, The Lord God will come againſt the mighty: i. e. Chriſt againſt the Devil and his Agents; whom he ſhall vanquiſh,Piſcat. Diod. and give them their due. See 1 Joh. 3.6. Mat. 12.29. Joh. 12.31. Coloſ. 2.15. Heb. 2.14.

And his arm ſhall rule for him] Or, his arm ſhall rule over him: i. e. over Satan.

Ver. 11. He ſhall feed his flock like a Shepherd] That good Shepherd ſhall, the Lord Jeſus, Joh. 10.11. See Pſal. 23.1. with the Notes.

He ſhall gather the Lambs with his arms] The Lord hath a great care of his little ones: like as he had of the weaker tribes: In their march thorough the wilderneſſe (in their ſeveral companies or brigades) he put a ſtrong Tribe to two weak Tribes; as Judah to Iſſachar and Zebulon: leſt they ſhould faint, or fail.

Ver. 12. Who hath meaſured the waters] Who but God alone? Totus eſt in hoc libro, ut confirmet nos in fide. God made Heaven, Earth and Sea, in number, weight and meaſure, as an Architect; therefore he wanteth neither power nor wiſdom to work in, and for his people.

And comprehended the duſt of the earth in a meaſure] In a teirce or in three fingers: for he ſpoke before of the hollow and ſpan of Gods hand.

Ver. 13. Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord] Who was then of his Counſel, when he made the Ʋniverſe? None but his own Eſſential wiſdom, Prov. 8.30. See Rom. 11.34.35. with the Notes.

Ver. 14. With whom took he Counſel?] See ver. 13.

Ver. 15. Behold the Nations are as the drop of a bucket] Quota igitur es tu iſtius guttae particula? what a ſmall parcel art thou then of that ſmall drop? ſaith an Ancient.

As the ſmall duſt of the balance] That weigheth nothing:Mira igitur ſuperbiae [illegible: 1 letter]n ſtraeſtultitia. Oecolamp. yea all men together laid in the balance with vanity it ſelf, will aſcend or tilt up, Pſal. 62.9.

He taketh up the Iſles as a very little thing] Or, he taketh up and throweth away the Iſles as powder.

Ver. 16. And Lebanon is not ſufficient to burn] So infinitely great is God: ſo abſolutely inſufficient is man to give God ſatisfaction. Let thoſe think on this, who talk of ſetting off with God, and of making amends, by their good deeds, for their bad.

Ver. 17. All Nations before him are as nothing] Agnoſce ergo virium tuarum [non-Latin text not transcribed]. See therefore thine own nothingneſs; and learn to vilifie, yea to nullifie thy ſelf before God, as Agur, Prov. 30.2. and as David, who was a worm and no man, Tertul. Pſal. 22.6. Rejectamentum hominis & nullificamen populi.

Ver. 18. To whom then will ye liken God?] A ſin which the Jews were exceeding prone unto, and would be tempted to, when in Captivity at Babylon; here therefore they have an Antidote provided aforehand. The voyce of the Goſpel is, Little Children, keep your ſelves from Idols, 1 Joh. 5.21. See the Notes.

Ver. 19. The workman melteth a graven Image] That may be afterward graved and gilded over.

And caſteth ſilver chaines] To faſten it to the place; Or, he raileth it in. Et niſi homini Deus placuerit, Deus non erit, ſaith Tertullian. Numa, ſecond King of Romans, ſaw this great vanity, and therefore forbad Images of the gods in Temples:Plut. in Numa. So do the Turkes at this day, to the ſhame of Papiſts Idolomania.

Ver. 20. He that is ſo impoveriſhed —chooſeth a tree] Which therehence may well ſay, Olim truneus eram ficulnus, inutile lignum, Cum faber incertus ſcamnum, faceretne Priapum, Maluit eſſe Deum; Deus inde ego:—

He chooſeth a tree that will not rot] Which yet is hard to do; the Cypreſs tree is moſt likely. But what goodly Gods were thoſe that could not keep themſelves from rotting.

A cunning workman] Somewhat better than he who made the ugly Rood of Cockram, whereof when they complained to the Mayor of Doncaſter, he adviſed them to clap a pair of hornes on the head of it, and then inſtead of a god, it would make an excellent devil.

Ver. 21. Have ye not known? have ye not heard?] Both Jews and Gentiles went againſt the light; the former of the Word, the latter of their own conſciences; in thus changing the glory of the incorruptible God into the ſimilitude of a corruptible creature, Rom. 1.23. Their ignorance was wilful and affected: ſome render this text, Will ye not know? will ye not hear? Idolaters are brutiſh and blockiſh; they that make them, are like unto them.

Ver. 22. It is he that ſitteth upon the circle of the earth] As Soveraign, and is he fit to be pourtrayed? In Thebe a town of Egypt, Plutarch de Iſid & Oſir. they painted God in the likeneſs of a man blowing an egge out of his mouth: to ſignifie, that he made the round world by his Word. Others ſet him forth as an Emperour with a Globe in one hand, and a Light-Bolt in the other. Pencer and others tell us, that if there were a path made round the circle of the earth, an able footman might eaſily go it in nine hundred dayes.

Ver. 23. That bringeth Princes to nothing] After their part acted here a while, they go off the ſtage of life, and are ſeen no more. Auguſtus Caeſar ſaid, that his life was nothing elſe but a kind of a Comedy: and that he had acted his part, as became him; and therefore, at his death, he called for a Plaudite.

Ver. 24. Yea they ſhall not be planted] They are like graſs, that is neither planted nor well rooted: but as weeds that grow on the top of the water, vel tanquam podii folium, Hieron. quod mane candidum, meridie purpureum, vespere caeruleum aſpicitur.

And he ſhall blow upon them] Two fits of an ague ſhook to death great Tamerlan, in the midſt of his preparations for the conqueſt of Turkey.

Ver. 25. To whom then will ye liken me?] See ver. 18, 19.

Cicero.Ver. 26. Lift up your eyes on high] Who is there ſaith an Heathen, that looketh up toward Heaven, and preſently perceiveth not that there is a God? we may well add, and an Almighty God? Why then ſhould the vanities of the Heathen come in competition with Him? or why ſhould Jacob ſay, My way is hid from the Lord, &c. as ver. 27. as if God neglected them, or were weary of helping them, ver. 28.

And behold who hath created theſe things] Without toole or toile, ver. 28. And ſhall the creature be worſhipped rather than the Creatour God bleſſed for ever?

That bringeth out their hoſt by number] As if he had them ſet down in his muſter-roles. Aſtronomers take upon them to number and name the chiefeſt of the ſtarres: reliquas nomenclationi Dei permittere coguntur. Abraham could not number them, Gen. 15.5. and yet Aratus and Eudoxus vainly vaunted, that they had done it.

Ver. 27. How ſaiſt thou, O Jacob, and ſpeakeſt, &c.] q. d. Fy for ſhame; what unbecoming language is this for ſuch! Doth God know and order the ſtarres, and hath he caſt away the care of his people? never think it: let it be enough and too much for an Heathen to ſay, Saepe mihi dubiam traxit ſententia mentem, Claudian.Curarent ſuperi terras, an nullus ineſſet Rector, & incerto fluerent mortalia caſu.

And my judgement is paſſed over] q. d. I thought I ſhould have had a day of hearing ere this: ſed comperendinor.

Ver. 28. He fainteth not, nor is weary] Or, he is neither tired nor toiled: viz. as earthly Judges may be. And his own people, for thinking otherwiſe of Him, are here taken up as tartly, as thoſe Idolaters before, ver. 21. with, Haſt thou not known? haſt thou not heard?

There is no ſearching of his underſtanding] Submit to Him therefore, as to the only wiſe God.De ſera Num. vindic. This, the very Heathens taught men to do; as Plutarch.

Ver. 29. He giveth power to the faint] How then ſhould he himſelf faint? or why ſhould any good mans heart faile him? The Jews among their Benedictions (whereof they are bound to ſay an hundred every day) have this for one, Bleſſed be God who giveth power to the faint:

Ver. 30. Even the youths ſhall faint] All that truſt to their own ſtrength, ſhall tire out: like as the Hare that truſteth to the ſwiftneſs of her legs, is at length overtaken, and torn in pieces: when the coney that flieth to the holes in the rockes, doth eaſily avoid the dogs that purſue her.

Ver. 31. Shall renew their ſtrength] Heb. ſhall change, quotidie ſeipſis fortiores prodeuntes, by the new ſupplies of the ſpirit, Phil. 1.19. they ſhall paſſe from ſtrength to ſtrength, Pſal. 84. They ſhall mount as Eagles. See Pſal. 103.5. R. Saadias ſaith, that every tenth year the Eagle mounteth up to the Orb of the Sun, cingeth her wings there, and ſo reneweth her age, till ſhe be an hundred.