“Keep silent before me, islands, and let the peoples renew their strength. Let them come near, then let them speak. Let’s meet together for judgment.
Parallel Translations
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“Keep silent before me, islands, and let the peoples renew their strength. Let them come near, then let them speak. Let’s meet together for judgment.
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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.
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Keep silence before Me, O islands, and let the peoples renew their strength; let them draw near, then let them speak; let us come near together to judgment.
Cross-references (18)
Passages linked to Isaiah 41:1 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Isaiah 1:18 “Come now, and let’s reason together,” says Yahweh: “Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
- Habakkuk 2:20 But Yahweh is in his holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before him!”
- Zechariah 2:13 Be silent, all flesh, before Yahweh; for he has roused himself from his holy habitation!”
- Psalms 46:10 “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth.”
- Isaiah 41:6-7 Everyone helps his neighbor. They say to their brothers, “Be strong!” So the carpenter encourages the goldsmith. He who smoothes with the hammer encourages him who strikes the anvil, saying of the soldering, “It is good;” and he fastens it with nails, that it might not totter.
- Job 38:3 Brace yourself like a man, for I will question you, then you answer me!
- Job 40:7-10 “Now brace yourself like a man. I will question you, and you will answer me. Will you even annul my judgment? Will you condemn me, that you may be justified? Or do you have an arm like God? Can you thunder with a voice like him? “Now deck yourself with excellency and dignity. Array yourself with honor and majesty.
- Isaiah 11:11 It will happen in that day that the Lord will set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant that is left of his people from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.
- Isaiah 34:1 Come near, you nations, to hear! Listen, you peoples. Let the earth and all it contains hear, the world, and everything that comes from it.
- Joel 3:10-11 Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weak say, ‘I am strong.’ Hurry and come, all you surrounding nations, and gather yourselves together.” Cause your mighty ones to come down there, Yahweh.
- Job 23:3-7 Oh that I knew where I might find him! That I might come even to his seat! I would set my cause in order before him, and fill my mouth with arguments. I would know the words which he would answer me, and understand what he would tell me. Would he contend with me in the greatness of his power? No, but he would listen to me. There the upright might reason with him, so I should be delivered forever from my judge.
- Job 31:35-36 oh that I had one to hear me! Behold, here is my signature! Let the Almighty answer me! Let the accuser write my indictment! Surely I would carry it on my shoulder; and I would bind it to me as a crown.
- Isaiah 8:9-10 Make an uproar, you peoples, and be broken in pieces! Listen, all you from far countries: dress for battle, and be shattered! Dress for battle, and be shattered! Take counsel together, and it will be brought to nothing; speak the word, and it will not stand, for God is with us.”
- Isaiah 41:21-22 Produce your cause,” says Yahweh. “Bring out your strong reasons!” says the King of Jacob. “Let them announce and declare to us what will happen! Declare the former things, what they are, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or show us things to come.
- Isaiah 48:16 “Come near to me and hear this: “From the beginning I have not spoken in secret; from the time that it happened, I was there.” Now the Lord Yahweh has sent me with his Spirit.
- Isaiah 49:1 Listen, islands, to me. Listen, you peoples, from afar: Yahweh has called me from the womb; from the inside of my mother, he has mentioned my name.
- Isaiah 50:8 He who justifies me is near. Who will bring charges against me? Let us stand up together. Who is my adversary? Let him come near to me.
- Micah 6:1-3 Listen now to what Yahweh says: “Arise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear what you have to say. Hear, you mountains, Yahweh’s controversy, and you enduring foundations of the earth; for Yahweh has a controversy with his people, and he will contend with Israel. My people, what have I done to you? How have I burdened you? Answer me!
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (24 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain That is, gather all their power and supports.
That is, gather all their power and supports.
God as though he pleaded his cause with all nations, requireth silence, that he may be heard in his right.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Isa 41:1 Keep silence before me, O islands; and…
Isa 41:1 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.
Ver. 1. Keep silence before me, O islands,] i.e., O islanders (so the Hebrews called all that were beyond sea to them), with whom God, being about to contest, calleth for silence that he may be heard. The people of Rome could hardly digest a Sιωπησατε, or keep silence from their emperor Adrian, as too severe; {a} but when God thundereth it, men wriggle into their holes as so many worms.
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And let the people renew their strength.] Come as strong as they can into the court, with their best advocates and arguments, since they are to debate the cause concerning their religion.
Let them come near together in judgment.] This is a wonderful condescension. En in quantum se demittat Deus!
{a} Dio in Adrian.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Keep silence before me; attend diligently to my plea,…
Keep silence before me; attend diligently to my plea, and then answer it if you can.
O islands; O you inhabitants of islands, as the next clause explains this. By islands he here means, as he doth Isa 40:15, and elsewhere, countries remote from Judea, inhabited by the idolatrous Gentiles, with whom he here debateth his cause.
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Let the people renew their strength; strengthen themselves to maintain their cause against me; let them unite all their strength together.
Let them come near unto me, that we may stand together, and plead our cause before any indifferent judge.
Let them speak; I will give them free liberty to say what they can on their own behalf.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain That particular instance of God's care for his people…
That particular instance of God's care for his people Israel in raising up Cyrus to be their deliverer is here insisted upon as a great proof both of his sovereignty above all idols and of his power to protect his people. Here is,
I. A general challenge to the worshippers and admirers of idols to make good their pretensions, in competition with God and opposition to him, Isa 41:1. Is is renewed (Isa 41:21): Produce your cause. The court is set, summonses are sent to the islands that lay most remote, but not out of God's jurisdiction, for he is the Creator and possessor of the ends of the earth, to make their appearance and give their attendance. Silence (as usual) is proclaimed while the cause is in trying: "Keep silence before me, and judge nothing before the time"; while the cause is in trying between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan it becomes all people silently to expect the issue, not to object against God's proceedings, but to be confident that he will carry the day. The defenders of idolatry are called to say what they can in defence of it: "Let them renew their strength, in opposition to God, and see whether it be equal to the strength which those renew that wait upon him (Isa 40:31); let them try their utmost efforts, whether by force of arms or force of argument. Let them come near; they shall not complain that God's dread makes them afraid (Job 13:21), so that they cannot say what they have to say, in vindication and honour of their idols; no, let them speak freely: Let us come near together to judgment." Note. 1. The cause of God and his kingdom is not afraid of a fair trial; if the case be but fairly stated, it will be surely carried in favour of religion. 2. The enemies of God's church and his holy religion may safely be challenged to say and do their worst for the support of their unrighteous cause. He that sits in heaven laughs at them, and the daughter of Zion despises them; for great is the truth and will prevail.
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II. He particularly challenges the idols to do that for their worshippers, and against his, which he had done and would do for his worshippers, and against theirs. Different senses are given of Isa 41:2, concerning the righteous man raised up from the east; and, since we cannot determine which is the true, we will make use of each as good.
1. That which is to be proved is, (1.) That the Lord is God alone, the first and with the last (Isa 41:4), that he is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, that he governed the world from the beginning, and will to the end of time. He has reigned of old, and will reign for ever; the counsels of his kingdom were from eternity, and the continuance of it will be to eternity. (2.) That Israel is his servant (Isa 41:8), whom he owns, and protects, and employs, and in whom he is and will be glorified. As there is a God in heaven, so there is a church on earth that is his particular care. Elijah prays (Kg1 18:36), Let it be known that thou art God, and that I am thy servant. Now,
2. To prove this he shows,
(1.) That it was he who called Abraham, the father of this despised nation, out of an idolatrous country, and by many instances of his favour made his name great, Gen 12:2. He is the righteous man whom God raised up from the east. Of him the Chaldee paraphrast expressly understands it: Who brought Abraham publicly from the east? To maintain the honour of the people of Israel, it was very proper to show what a figure this great ancestor of theirs made in his day; and Isa 41:8 seems to be the explication of it, where God calls Israel the seed of Abraham my friend; and (Isa 41:4) he calls the generations (namely, the generations of Israel) from the beginning. Also, to put contempt upon idolatry, and particularly the Chaldean idolatry, it was proper to show how Abraham was called from serving other gods (Jos 24:2, Jos 24:3, etc.), so that an early testimony was borne against that idolatry which boasted so much of its antiquity. Also, to encourage the captives in Babylon to hope that God would find a way for their return to their own land, it was proper to remind them how at first he brought their father Abraham out of the same country into this land, to give it to him for an inheritance, Gen 15:7. Now observe what is here said concerning him. [1.] That he was a righteous man, or righteousness, a man of righteousness, that believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness; and so he became the father of all those who by faith in Christ are made the righteousness of God through him, Rom 4:3, Rom 4:11; Co2 5:21. He was a great example of righteousness in his day, and taught his household to do judgment and justice, Gen 18:19. [2.] That God raised him up from the east, from Ur first and afterwards from Haran, which lay east from Canaan. God would not let him settle in either of those places, but did by him as the eagle by her young, when she stirs up her nest: he raised him out of iniquity and made him pious, out of obscurity and made him famous. [3.] He called him to his foot, to follow him with an implicit faith; for he went out, not knowing whither he went, but whom he followed, Heb 11:8. Those whom God effectually calls he calls to his foot, to be subject to him, to attend him, and follow the Lamb whithersoever he goes; and we must all either come to his foot or be made his footstool. [4.] He gave nations before him, the nations of Canaan, which he promised to make him master of, and thus far gave him an interest in that the Hittites acknowledged him a mighty prince among them, Gen 23:6. He made him rule over those kings whom he conquered for the rescue of his brother Lot, Gen. 14. And when God gave them as dust to his sword, and as driven stubble to his bow (that is, made them an easy prey to his catechised servants), he then pursued them, and passed safely, or in peace, under the divine protection, though it was in a way he was altogether unacquainted with; and so considerable was this victory that Melchizedec himself appeared to celebrate it. Now who did this but the great Jehovah? Can any of the gods of the heathen do so?
(2.) That it is he who will, ere long, raise up Cyrus from the east. It is spoken of according to the language of prophecy as a thing past, because as sure to be done in its season as if it were already done. God will raise him up in righteousness (so it may be read, Isa 45:13), will call him to his foot, make what use of him he pleases, and make him victorious over the nations that oppose his coming to the crown, and give him success in all his wars; and he shall be a type of Christ, who is righteousness itself, the Lord our righteousness, whom God will, in the fulness of time, raise up and make victorious over the powers of darkness; so that he shall spoil them and make a show of them openly.
III. He exposes the folly of idolaters, who, notwithstanding the convincing proofs which the God of Israel had given of his being God alone, obstinately persisted in their idolatry, nay, were so much the more hardened in it (Isa 41:5): The isles of the Gentiles saw this, not only what God did for Abraham himself, but what he did for his seed, for his sake, how he brought them out of Egypt, and made them rule over kings, and they feared, Exo 15:14-16. They were afraid, and, according to the summons (Isa 41:1), they drew near, and came; they could not avoid taking notice of what God did for Abraham and his seed; but, instead of helping to reason one another out of their sottish idolatries, they helped to confirm one another in them, Isa 41:6, Isa 41:7. 1. They looked upon it as a dangerous design upon their religion, which they were jealous for the honour of, and were resolved, right or wrong, to adhere to, and therefore were alarmed to appear vigorously for the support of it, as the Ephesians for their Diana. When God, by his wonderful appearances on the behalf of his people, went about to wrest their idols from them, they held them so much the faster, and said one to another, "Be of good courage; let us unanimously agree to keep up the reputation of our gods. Though Dagon fall before the ark, he shall be set up again in his place." One tradesman encourages another to come into a confederacy for the keeping up of the noble craft of god-making. Thus men's convictions often exasperate their corruptions, and they are made worse both by the word and the works of God, which should make them better. 2. They looked upon it as a dangerous design upon themselves. They thought themselves in danger from the growing greatness both of Abraham that was a convert from idolatry, and of the people of Israel that were separatists from it; and therefore they not only had recourse to their old gods for protection, but made new ones, Deu 32:17. So the carpenter, having done his part to the timberwork, encouraged the goldsmith to do his part in gilding or overlaying it; and, when it came into the goldsmith's hand, he that smooths with the hammer that polishes it, or beats it thin, quickened him that smote the anvil, bade him be expeditious, and told him it was ready for the soldering, which perhaps was the last operation about it, and then it is fastened with nails, and you have a god of it presently. Do sinners thus animate and quicken one another in the ways of sin? And shall not the servants of the living God both stir up one another to, and strengthen one another in, his service? Some read all this ironically, and by way of permission: Let them help every one his neighbour; let the carpenter encourage the goldsmith; but all in vain; idols shall fall for all this.
IV. He encourages his own people to trust in him (Isa 41:8, Isa 41:9): "But thou, Israel, art my servant. They know me not, but thou knowest me, and knowest better than to join with such ignorant besotted people as these" (for it is intended for a warning to the people of God not to walk in the way of the heathen); "they put themselves under the protection of these impotent deities, but thou art under my protection. Those that make them are like unto them, and so is every one that trusts in them; but thou, O Israel! art the servant of a better Master." Observe what is suggested here for the encouragement of God's people when they are threatened and insulted over. 1. They are God's servants, and he will not see them abused, especially for what they do in his service: Thou art my servant (Isa 41:8), and (Isa 41:9) "I have said unto thee, Thou art my servant; and I will not go back from my word." 2. He has chosen them to be a peculiar people to himself. They were not forced upon him, but of his own good-will he set them apart. 3. They were the seed of Abraham his friend. It was the honour of Abraham that he was called the friend of God (Jam 2:23), whom God covenanted and conversed with as a friend, and the man of his counsel; and this honour have all the saints, Joh 15:15. And for the father's sake the people of Israel were beloved. God was pleased to look upon them as the posterity of an old friend of his, and therefore to be kind to them; for the covenant of friendship was made with Abraham and his seed. 4. He had sometimes, when they had been scattered among the heathen, fetched them from the ends of the earth and taken them out of the hands of the chief ones thereof, and therefore he would not now abandon them. Abraham their father was fetched from a place at a great distance, and they in his loins; and those who had been thus far-fetched and dear-bought he could not easily part with. 5. He had not yet cast them away, though they had often provoked him, and therefore he would not now abandon them. What God has done for his people, and what he has further engaged to do, should encourage them to trust in him at all times.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Keep silence before me, O islands,.... The great controversy…
Keep silence before me, O islands,.... The great controversy in the world after the coming of Christ, which is expressly spoken of in the preceding chapter, was, as Cocceius observes, whether he was a divine Person; this was first objected to by the Jews, and afterwards by many that bore the Christian name; some, in the times of the apostles, especially the Apostle John; and others in later ages; some affirmed that he was a mere man, as Ebion and Cerinthus; others that he was a created God, as Arius; and others a God by office, as Socinus and his followers; now these are called upon, wherever they were, whether on the continent, or in the isles of the sea; and especially all such places which were separated from Judea by the sea, or which they went to by sea, were called islands, perhaps the European nations and isles are more particularly intended; and now, as when the judge is on the bench, and the court is set, and a cause just going to be tried, silence is proclaimed; so here, Jehovah himself being on the throne, and a cause depending between him and men being about to be tried, they are commanded silence; see Zac 2:13,
and let the people renew their strength; muster up all their force, collect the most powerful arguments they had, and produce their strong reasons in favour of their sentiments:
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let them come near, then let them speak; let them come into open court, and at the bar plead their cause, and speak out freely and fully all they have to say; and let them not pretend that they were deterred from speaking, and not suffered to make their defence, or were condemned without hearing:
let us come near together in judgment: and fairly try the cause; the issue of which is put upon this single point that follows.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain God called Cyrus, and was with him, the nations…
God called Cyrus, and was with him, the nations idolatrous, ver. 1-8. Israel encouraged by promises of safety and deliverance, ver. 9-20. The vanity of idols, ver. 21-24. Redemption by Christ, ver. 25-29.
Keep silence - Attend diligently to my plea. Islands - By islands he means countries remote from Judea, inhabited by the idolatrous Gentiles. Renew - Strengthen themselves to maintain their cause against me; let them unite all their strength together. Near - Unto me that we may stand together, and plead our cause, and I will give them free liberty to say what they can on their own behalf.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain The prophet, having intimated the deliverance from Babylon, and
CHAPTER XLI
The prophet, having intimated the deliverance from Babylon, and
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the still greater redemption couched under it, resumes the
subject. He begins with the Divine vocation of Abraham, the
root of the Israelitish family, and his successful exploits
against the idolaters, 1-7.
He then recurs to the Babylonish captivity, and encourages the
seed of Abraham, the friend of God, not to fear, as all their
enemies would be ultimately subdued under them, 8-16;
and every thing furnished necessary to refresh and comfort them
in them passage homewards through the desert, 17-20.
The prophet then takes occasion to celebrate the prescience of
God, from his knowledge of events so very distant as instanced
in the prediction concerning the messenger of glad tidings
which should be given to Jerusalem to deliver her from all her
enemies; and challenges the idols of the heathen to produce the
like proof of their pretended divinity, 21-27.
But they are all vanity, and accursed are they that choose
them, 28, 29.
NOTES ON CHAP. XLI
Verse 1. Keep silence before me, O islands - "Let the distant nations repair to me with new force of mind"] Εγκαινιζεσθε, Septuagint. For החרישו hacharishu, be silent, they certainly read in their copy החדישו hachadishu, be renewed; which is parallel and synonymous with יחלפו כח yechalephu coach, "recover their strength; " that is, their strength of mind, their powers of reason; that they may overcome those prejudices by which they have been so long held enslaved to idolatry. A MS. has הר har, upon a rasure. The same mistake seems to have been made in this word, Zep 3:17. For יחריש באהבתו yacharish beahabatho, silebit in directione sua, as the Vulgate renders it; which seems not consistent with what immediately follows, exultabit super te in laude; the Septuagint and Syriac read יחדיש באהבתו yachadish beahabatho, "he shall be renewed in his love." אלי elai, to me, is wanting in one of De Rossi's MSS. and in the Syriac.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Isa 41:1. Keep, &c. — “The prophet, having in…
Isa 41:1. Keep, &c. — “The prophet, having in view the subversion of idolatry, had, in the former chapter, from Isa 41:18, argued against it, from the essence and nature of God, the supreme Creator and Ruler of the world, being such as not to be represented by any corporeal matter or figure. To this disputation he subjoined a consolation, directed to the people of God, from Isa 41:27 to the end of the chapter. Therefore, after this consolatory parenthesis, he renews his disputation against idolaters, by an argument taken from God’s certain foreknowledge, and foretelling of future events, from which he selects that remarkable one respecting Cyrus, as the deliverer of the people of God, and the destroyer of Babylon: an event utterly unknown to idols and idolaters, and therefore an astonishment to the nations; and yet an event which God so long time before exactly foretold in every circumstance by our prophet. He who can thus predict future events, the prophet urges, must be allowed to possess true divinity. He who cannot, has no claim to that honour. The prophet the rather makes use of this argument, because paganism so much gloried in its false prophecies and oracles. Here then is God exhibited, as if appearing in public, and preparing himself to dispute with idolaters, for his truth and glory; and therefore the islands and people, all the nations of the world, are summoned to plead their cause; and an awful silence is enjoined, according to the forms observed in courts of justice, for both in this and Isa 41:21 the expressions and ideas are taken from those courts.” See Vitringa and Dodd. The phrase, Let the people renew their strength, signifies, “Let them prepare themselves, and come forth to the cause, furnished with all the strength of argument and reason they can collect; let them unite all their powers, and set their cause in the best light possible.”
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain The design of this chapter is the same as…
The design of this chapter is the same as that of the preceding, and it is to be regarded as the continuation of the argument commenced there. Its object is to lead those who were addressed, to put confidence in God. In the introduction to Isa. 40 it was remarked, that this is to be considered as addressed to the exile Jews in Babylon, near the close of their captivity. Their country, city, and temple had been laid waste. The prophet represents himself as bringing consolation to them in this situation; particularly by the assurance that their long captivity was about to end; that they were about to be restored to their own land, and thai their trials were to be succeeded by brighter and happier times. In the previous chapter there were general reasons given why they should put their confidence in God - arising from the firmness of his promises, the fact that he had created all things; that he had all power, etc. In this chapter there is a more definite view given, and a clearer light thrown on the mode in which deliverance would be brought to them. The prophet specifies that God would raise up a deliverer, and that that deliverer would be able to subdue all their enemies. The chapter may be conveniently divided into the following parts:
I. God calls the distant nations to a public investigation of his ability to aid his people; to an argument whether he was able to deliver them; and to the statement of the reasons why they should confide in him Isa 41:1.
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II. He specifies that he will raise up a man from the east - who should be able to overcome the enemies of the Jews, and to effect their deliverance Isa 41:2-4.
III. The consternation of the nations at the approach of Cyrus, and their excited and agitated fleeing to their idols is described Isa 41:5-7.
IV. God gives to his people the assurance of his protection, and friendship Isa 41:8-14. This is shown:
1. Because they were the children of Abraham, his friend, and be was bound in covenant faithfulness to protect them Isa 41:8-9.
2. By direct assurance that he would aid and protect them; that though they were feeble, yet he was strong enough to deliver them Isa 41:10-14.
V. He says that he will enable them to overcome and scatter their foes, as the chaff is driven away on the mountains by the whirlwind Isa 41:15-16.
VI. He gives to his people the special promise of assistance and comfort. He will meet them in their desolate condition, and will give them consolation as if fountains were opened in deserts, and trees producing grateful shade and fruit were planted in the wilderness Isa 41:17-20.
VII. He appeals directly to the enemies of the Jews, to the worshippers of idols. He challenges them to give any evidence of the power or the divinity of their idols; and appeals to the fact that he had foretold future events; that he had raised up a deliverer for his people in proof of his divinity, and his power to save Isa 41:21-29. The argument of the whole is, that the idol-gods were unable to defend the nations which trusted in them; that God would raise up a mighty prince who should be able to deliver the Jews from their long and painful calamity, and that they, therefore, should put their trust in Yahweh.
Keep silence before me - (Compare Zec 2:13) The idea is, that the pagan nations were to be silent while God should speak, or with a view of entering into an argument with him respecting the comparative power of himself and of idols to defend their respective worshippers. The argument is stated in following verses, and preparatory to the statement of that argument, the people are exhorted to be silent. This is probably to evince a proper awe and reverence for Yahweh, before whom the argument was to be conducted, and a proper sense of the magnitude and sacredness of the inquiry (compare Isa 41:21). And it may be remarked here, that the same reasons will apply to all approaches which are made to God. When we are about to come before him in prayer or praise; to confess our sins and to plead for pardon; when we engage an argument respecting his being, plans, or perfections; or when we draw near to him in the closet, the family, or the sanctuary, the mind should be filled with awe and reverence. It is well, it is proper, to pause and think of what our emotions should be, and of what we should say, before God (compare Gen 28:16-17).
O islands - (איים 'iyiym). This word properly means islands, and is so translated here by the Vulgate, the Septuagint, the Chaldee, the Syriac, and the Arabic. But the word also is used to denote maritime countries; Countries that were situated on seacoasts, or the regions beyond sea (see the note at Isa 20:6). The word is applied, therefore, to the islands of the Mediterranean; to the maritime coasts; and then, also, it comes to be used in the sense of any lands or coasts far remote, or beyond sea (see Psa 72:10; Isa 24:15; the notes at Isa 40:15; Isa 41:5; Isa 42:4, Isa 42:10, Isa 42:12; Isa 49:1; Jer 25:22; Dan 11:18). Here it is evidently used in the sense of distant nations or lands; the people who were remote from Palestine, and who were the worshippers of idols. The argument is represented as being with them, and they are invited to prepare their minds by suitable reverence for God for the argument which was to be presented.
And let the people renew their strength - On the word ‘renew,’ see the note at Isa 40:31. Here it means, ‘Let them make themselves strong; let them prepare the argument; let them be ready to urge as strong reasons as possible; let them fit themselves to enter into the controversy about the power and glory of Yahweh’ (see Isa 41:21).
Let us come near together to judgment - The word ‘judgment’ here means evidently controversy, argumentation, debate. Thus it is used in Job 9:32. The language is that which is used of two parties who come together to try a cause, or to engage in debate; and the sense is, that God proposes to enter into an argumentation with the entire pagan world, in regard to his ability to save his people; that is, he proposes to show the reasons why they should trust in him, rather than dread those under whose power they then were, and by whom they had been oppressed. Lowth renders it, correctly expressing the sense, ‘Let us enter into solemn debate together.’
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Islands, near Asia, whose conversion Isaias often predicts, (Calmet)…
Islands, near Asia, whose conversion Isaias often predicts, (Calmet) as he does that of all nations. (Haydock) --- God continues to prove his divinity, (Calmet) expostulating with idolaters, whose conversion is insinuated, and among the rest that of Britain, which is the most renowned island in Europe. (Bristow, anot. 11.) (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain The First Appearance of the Redeemer from the East…
II.—THE SECOND DISCOURSE
The First Appearance of the Redeemer from the East and of the Servant of Jehovah, and also the First and Second Conversion of the Prophecy relating to this into a Proof of the Divinity of Jehovah.
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Isaiah 41
1. THE FIRST CHIEF FIGURE: THE DELIVERER CALLED FROM THE EAST. THE FIRST APPLICATION OF THE PROPHECY AS A TEST OF DIVINITY
Isa_41:1-7
1 Keep silence before me, O islands; and let the people 1renew their strength;
2Let them come near; then let them speak:
3Let us come near together to judgment.
2 Who raised up 4the righteous man from the east,
Called him to his foot,
Gave the nations before him,
And made him rule over kings?
5He gave them as the dust to his sword,
And as driven stubble to his bow,
3 He pursued them, and passed 6safely;
7Even by the way that he had not gone with his feet.
4 Who hath wrought and done it, 8calling the generations from the beginning?
I the Lord, the first,
And with the last; I am he.
5 The Isles saw it, and feared;
The ends of the earth were afraid,
Drew near, and came.
6 They helped every one his neighbour;
And every one said to his brother,9Be of good courage.
7 So the 10carpenter encouraged the 11goldsmith,
And he that smootheth with the hammer 12him that smote the anvil,
13Saying, it is ready for the sodering:
And he fastened it with nails, that it should not be moved.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
See List for the recurrence of the words: Isa_41:1. קרב–החריש. Isa_41:2. מזרה–העיר. Isa_41:3. רדף. Isa_41:4. אַחֲרֹנִים–רִאשׁוֹן–דּוֹר–פעל. Isa_41:5.–חרד אָתָה. Isa_41:6. חַזַק–עָזַר. Isa_41:7. הלם–פטישׁ–מחליק–צרֵֹף–חָרָש
Isa_41:1. We have a pregnant construction in, החרישׁו אלי comp. Job_13:13.
Isa_41:2. The perfect מִי הֵעִיר is only the prophetic perfect, representing the fact of awaking, not as one actually past, but as actually certain, i. e., all the same as happened. It indicates thus the objective reality, but not the time, as indeed generally the Hebrew modi express primarily not the time but the modality of being. The same is true of העיותי Isa_41:25.—What is the object of הֵעִיר? Modern expositors, since Vitringa, so far as I see, are all of them of the opinion that the words צדק יקראהו לרגלו, to be construed as a relative clause, are the object: him whom right (salvation, victory) meets at his feet. This exposition rests on the Masoretic punctuation But this does not give an absolute rule. It has the great disadvantage that it compels us to take יקרא in the sense of יִקְרֶה and לרגלו, accordingly, in the sense of “before him,” “ante pedem ejus.” Now the first would present no difficulty, since קרא occurs often enough in the sense of קרה. But the latter is very serious since לְרֶגֶל in all other places of its occurrence means “to follow on the feet of.” In Gen_30:30 it stands directly in antithesis with לְפָנַי: “little hadst thou before me, but it spreads out to a multitude behind me” (on my foot לְרַגְלִי). Deu_33:3 תֻּכּוּ לְרַגְלֶךָ is “they turned after thy foot-print,” (comp. Schrader in loc). Compare the usage in 1Sa_25:42; Job_18:11; Hab_3:5. Only in these passages does רֶגֶל occur with לְ denoting place. Thus the objection to taking לרגלו in the sense of “obviam, towards,” is certainly justified. Then we must take קרא and לרגלו in their common meaning, “to call,” and “after him.” Moreover we must take צדק as object of העיר as all the ancient translations and many later expositors have done. The LXX.: τίσ ἐξήγειρεν ἀπὸ ἀνατολῶν δικαιοσύνην, ἐκάλεσεν αὐτὴν κατὰ πόδας αὐτοῦ; Vulg. quis suscitavit ab oriente justum, vocavit eum, ut sequeretur se, etc.—The expression יתן לפניו reminds one of Deu_28:7; Deu_28:24-25.—If we take יַרְדְּ as Hiph. of רָדָה “conculcare,” then it means “conculcare faciet.” Of course מְלָכִים is object: he will make him trample down kings.” But it might be taken as Kal. (יַרְדְּ instead of יֵרְדְּ on account of the pause). The only difference in sense would be: “he will himself trample down.”—יתן כעפר וגו׳. It seems to me over-ingenious, when Delitzsch construes the כְּ as the mere intimation of a comparison that is left to the reader’s fancy to be completed. All depends on making חרבו and קשׁתו subject. That it does not read תִּתֵּן because חֶרֶב and קֶשֶׁת are feminine, makes not the least difficulty. For the ideal subject is “he” that holds the sword and bow. Comp. Isa_17:5; Isa_51:5. Rueckert, Knobel and others needlessly supply אֲשֶׁר before יתן. After יתן one may supply אוֹתָם, as often the pronominal object is omitted (comp. Gen_2:19; Gen_6:19 sqq., and especially 1Ki_22:6; 1Ki_22:15, where also the object is omitted after נתן); or, still more simply, one may regard כעפר and כקשׁ as the immediate object of יתן: “his sword shall make like dust, his bow like scattered chaff,” i. e., sword and bow when set to work will produce that effect, likeness to dust and chaff.—Note the assonance in יַרְדְּ and נִדָּף ,יִרְדְּפֵם and קַשׁ ,יִרְדְּפֵּם and קַשְׁתּוֹ.
Isa_41:3. שָׁלוֹם either adjective or adverbial accusative.—I believe that יַֽעֲבֹר and יָבוֹא stand in antithesis. For, as is well known, בּוֹא often has the sense of going back in antithesis to verbs meaning “to go thither, go out.” Thus יצא and בוא are often used in antithesis; comp. Jos_6:1; 1Ki_3:7. Hence they are used of the rising and setting of the sun (Gen_19:23; Isa_13:19, and Gen_15:12; Gen_15:17; Gen_18:11, etc.). Comp. Isa_37:28; Num_27:17 : 1Sa_29:6; 1Ki_15:17; 2Ch_1:10, etc.). But בוא also stands in antithesis to other verbs in this sense; thus Psa_126:6. “Forth goes the bearer of the seeding, hither comes with rejoicing the bearer of his sheaves.” Consider in addition that probably ברגליו corresponds to לרגלו Isa_41:2. For בְּרֶגֶל פ׳ is to the question “where?” the same that לְרֶגִל פ׳ is to the question “whither?” Thus to go בְּרַגְלֵי פ׳ very often means “to go on the track of one” (comp. Exo_11:8; Jdg_4:10; Jdg_8:5; 1Sa_25:27; 2Sa_15:17, etc.). One may, indeed, translate ברגליו in our text: “he will not measure backwards with his feet the way;” for in itself it may very well mean that (comp. Num_20:19; Deu_2:28; Jdg_4:15; Jdg_4:17; Pro_19:2, etc.). But every one feels that this sense here were superfluous. It might be urged in reference to taking בוא in the sense of redire, that then, too, ברנליו were superfluous. But the antithesis of עָבָר and בּוִא is not so pregnant as that of יצא and בּוֹא, and hence the Prophet’s intended meaning of this word is not so plainly recognizable, and indeed, so far, as I know, no one has recognized it. Thus, to give a hint to the reader of the sense he would convey by יבוא, the Prophet adds ברגליו.
Isa_41:4. When הוּא stands emphatically for God, as it does here, it always refers backward, either to an unnamed and unnameable something in the preceding context, yet known as assumed, that involves the notion the One-All who upholds all things and comprehends everything. So it seems to me to be used Deu_32:39; Isa_43:10; Isa_48:12. In such a case הוּא is predicate. Or it so refers back to that great Unnamed, that is known to be taken for granted, that it appears as in apposition with the subject. Then it = talis. הוּא is used thus of men, Jer_49:12, and after מִי Isa_50:9, etc. But it stands for God in this sense, 2Sa_7:28; Isa_37:16; Neh_9:6-7. But it can also be predicate in this way, that it only introduces the predicate notion as one already known. Then it is = ille, is, and always has a participle after it (ego sum ille, qui, comp. Isa_51:9-10, אַתְּ־הִיא Isa_43:25; Isa_51:12.—But further הוּא appears also to be the simple connecting “it,” which says that the preceding statement appertains as predicate to the subject represented by אַתָּה or אֲנִי Isa_43:13; Jer_14:22; Psa_44:5. But finally הוּא serves the purpose of affirming the identity of the predicate clause with the predicate of a preceding clause that is expressed or implied. Then it acquires the meaning idem. So here and Psa_102:28 (comp. Job_3:19; Heb_13:8). In our passage הוּא manifestly affirms that Jehovah is with those that are last that one that He was as the first, i. e., the same.
Isa_41:5. איים see Isa_41:1; and on קצות הארץ see Isa_40:28.
Isa_41:7. Drawing the accent back in הולם to avoid the collision of two tone syllables is normal, but the change of Tsere to Seghol is not normal (comp. Isa_49:7; Isa_66:3; Num. 17:23; 24:22; Eze_22:25). The latter is probably occasioned by the effort to better imitate the beat of the hammer strokes.—פַּעַם in the sense of “anvil” only here.—One need not construe אֹמֵר participle. It may stand in the sense of a finite verb (comp. Isa_2:6; Isa_24:2; Isa_29:8; Isa_32:12).—דֶּבֶק adhaesio, agglutinatio signifies that whereby the work of the צרף is joined to that of the חרשׁ; לְ= “in reference to” (Isa_5:1; Gen_20:13, etc.).
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. God has a twofold object in view: 1) He would announce that He will raise up for His people a deliverer from the East; this is the chief contents of the first Ennead. 2) By this act of deliverance He would demonstrate His divinity in contrast with the nothingness of idols. This twofold object He attains by summoning the heathen nations to a trial in which He gives the proofs of His divinity (Isa_41:1-5); but they on their part do not respond, for the powerlessness of their idols is shown by a brief reference to the manner in which they originate (Isa_41:6-7).
2. Keep silence——judgment.
Isa_41:1. With reverential silence (comp. on יגשׁו ו׳) must the islands (comp. on Isa_40:15) come to the Lord. For that He is the speaker appears from Isa_41:1-2, and especially from Isa_41:4. The expression יחליפּו כח, “ they shall renew their strength,” stands here so near to Isa_40:31, that we must regard it as a link that binds the two chapters together. The Lord would intimate by these words that the task the nations will have to perform before the judgment, is a difficult one, that therefore they must “in respect to strength make change,” i. e., renew strength, put on new strength. [“As if He had said: they that hope in Jehovah shall renew their strength; but those that refuse renew theirs as they can.”—J. A. A.] The Lord demands politeness, reverence from the nations even before the controversy is decided, so certain is He that He will gain it. They must not come on with rude noise, but modestly and then speak. למשׁפט, “to judicial trial,” is used here as in Isa_54:17; Num_35:12; Jos_20:6; Jdg_4:5; 2Sa_15:2; 2Sa_15:6. If Jehovah is Himself a party, who is then the judge? To this question Rosenmueller (with whom Delitzsch agrees) well replies: “Vocantur gentes in judicium ad tribunal non Dei sed rationis.”
3. Who raised——with his feet.
Isa_41:2-3. With these words the Lord deposeth before the judgment a proof of His divinity. It does not consist merely in the fact that the deeds of the hero announced here shall give their right to the people of God, i. e., deliverance from the unrighteous tyranny of the heathen, while He will destroy the latter; but above all it consists in the fact that the Lord prophesies the appearance of the hero, and thus stakes His honor on the fulfilment of it. For that this hero brings deliverance to the people may be accident, an effect of His fancy, of arbitrariness, of a ruler’s caprice. In hat would therefore lie no strict proof of the divinity of Jehovah. But if Jehovah prophesies the appearance and doing of that hero, and it happens accordingly, then it is proved that the Lord is a living, omniscient, and almighty God. One may not object that “what is future and unfulfilled would be without present power to prove” (Delitzsch). For the text has nothing to do with an historical, actual disputation with heathen, in which, of course, a prophecy would be no proof. But the supposed disputation is only a rhetorical form that the Prophet uses in order to make the Israelites sensible of their folly and wrong, who, though they knew the living divinity of Jehovah, and that idols were without life, turned to the latter notwithstanding. This meaning appears by a comparison with Isa_41:21 sqq. For there the idols are very expressly challenged to prophesy future events, and from their powerlessness to do so is inferred their nothingness. And hence it appears to me that the verses 1–7 stand first as theme. The redemption, that in them is only intimated, is more particularly described, Isa_41:8-20, while Isa_41:21-29 amplify in respect to the way in which the appearance of the deliverer will be a proof for Jehovah who had foretold it, and against the idols which were unable to foretell it. Thus I do not believe that the argumentation of the Prophet presupposes the victorious career of Cyrus as begun, either in an ideal or in a real sense. It is wholly a thing of the future, and must be so contemplated. For how otherwise could the Prophet prophesy it?
It is plain that Cyrus is the hero referred to, and not Abraham, or Christ, or even the Apostle Paul, as, until Vitringa, was the opinion of the ancient expositors. The way for naming this name, which is produced at last in Isa_44:28, is prepared with much art. The hints of its coming may be compared to the gleams of light that, beginning feebly, and increasing in strength and extent, precede the sunrise. The first hint is that the East is to be the point whence the grand appearance shall issue. Persia in fact lies east of Babylonia. It accords also with the purpose of beginning small that the Prophet does not once name a definite, personal object of העיר. We must take צדק as that object (see Text and Gram.) Regarding the meaning of צדק, I would repeat the remark already made, that the Old Testament righteousness is not the antithesis of grace, but of violent oppression, and hence that a צדיק, “righteous man,” is one who, though he has the power to the contrary, still lets right reign, and thereby both uses gentleness and dispenses happiness, salvation, and blessing [see comm. on Isa_1:21; Isa_1:26, Tr.]. Israel in exile was oppressed by its enemies, and though in respect to Jehovah this was a deserved punishment, still their enemies had, ex propriis, aggravated it, and thereby done a wrong to Israel (comp. Isa_10:5 sqq.). If now the hero from the East acts justly toward Israel, he shows himself to be a mild lord, and helps Israel to its rights against the oppression of the heathen, and thereby to happiness and salvation. Hence I believe that all these meanings are implied in צֶרֶק. But they can only become operative through a person, a צדיק, “righteous man.” To this latent notion in צדק, of a righteous man, the following suffixes [pronouns] must be referred. It suits the purpose of the Prophet already noticed, to let the person of the deliverer appear by degrees and unfold itself. One may say that his personality develops itself here, as it were, out of an impersonal germ. This one awakened to do righteousness the Lord calls after Him (comp. Isa_42:6, which passage the Masorets perhaps had in mind when they connected צדק with יקראהו), i. e., he leads him further and fur ther [לרגלו, see Text. and Gramm.]. Is there thus in יקראהו לר׳ a formal definition of העיר, so in יתו there is a definition as to matter. The words last named say what the hero, by extending his power, will do. All these clauses stand under the influence of the interrogative מִי. Nations are properly not things that one gives away, and kings rule and are not themselves ruled. But here is an exception. Jehovah gives to this hero nations to do as he pleases with them, and subjects kings to him so that they must serve him. His sword made them as dust, etc., describes the degree to which they are given to him which was before said in יתן and ירד. His sword and bow, once set to work, will do such work that the result will be the likeness of dust and chaff (see Text. and Gram.) On קַשׁ see on Isa_40:24; נִדַּף comp. Isa_19:7. But not merely a battle in one place shall occur, but also pursuit of the fugitives. He, the conquering hero, shall go on well-preserved (שׁלום), and always forwards, never backwards (see Text. and Gram. on ארה ברגליו, etc.). He will not go back in his own foot-prints (il ne reviendra pas sur ses pas). [J. A. A. agrees with Ewald, “the clause describes the swiftness of his motions, as flying rather than walking on foot,” and cites in support Dan_8:5.—Tr.].
4. Who hath wrought——and came.
Isa_41:4-5. The Lord has announced a majestic appearance of world-wide significance. But, though it is something still future, He has let it appear as an image of the past before the eyes of those that were summoned. Hence, as Isa_41:2 He asked: “who has awakened?” so He now asks, using the past tense, who has prepared and made this? Of course the same that foreknew and predicted it, and who could do this because He is the One who from the beginning called the generations of men into existence, and hence can say of Himself: I Jehovah the first and I am still with the last (see Text. and Gram.). The Lord summoned the heathen to a controversy (Isa_41:1). He has laid down the proof of His divinity (Isa_41:2-4). Now it is the turn of the heathen to produce a similar performance on the part of their idols. Notice that the Prophet opposes the heathen nations to God, and not their idols. This is quite natural. For the idols have no actual existence. Hence it comes that the heathen must defend the cause of their idols; whereas Israel’s God defends the cause of His people. Therefore, obedient to the summons of Isa_41:1, the heathen nations approach. They see the proof that the Lord has presented in His own favor, and with dismay, for they know at once that they cannot match the performance with any thing similar. And so they approach trembling, as it were, to look at this trial-sample of Jehovah’s on all sides. That they would have said something is not declared. Speechless they keep silence before the majesty of the Lord.
5. They helped——be moved.
Isa_41:6-7. It is too incredible that the heathen, seized with fear, and in order to find help against the threatening appearance of the predicted hero, turn in haste to the fabrication of idol images (Delitz.), or that they nailed fast those threatened by Cyrus (Hitzig). No, these verses would show, by the manner in which idols originate, that they cannot possibly triumph in the controversy to which they are challenged (Isa_41:1). How can such productions of men’s hands maintain themselves against Him who can speak of Himself as in Isa_41:4? I accordingly connect Isa_41:6 with what follows, and not with what precedes. For Isa_41:5 evidently corresponds to Isa_41:1. For there the nations are required to approach reverently and in silence; for this very reason they are unable to respond to the “they shall speak” (Isa_41:1): there the nations are called on to get strength, and Isa_41:5 we see them draw near, afraid and trembling; “they drew near” and “came” of Isa_41:5 corresponds to “they shall approach,” “we will draw near” (נקרבה יגשׁו) of Isa_41:1. With this the cyle of thought beginning with Isa_41:1 is concluded. Thus Isa_41:5 looks backwards; Isa_41:6 forwards. The latter says in general the same that Isa_41:7 a says in reference to particular relations. Both verses have for their chief idea that idol-making is a fatiguing labor, costing not only much money (Isa_40:19), but also much sweat, in which one must encourage and aid the other in order to get it done. What a shameful difference then between idols and Jehovah.
The חָרָשׁ, “smith,” prepares the body of the image; the צֹרֵף, “founder,” makes ready the covering. The former strengthens the latter by good preparatory work and cheering words. “The smoother with the hammer” seems to me to be identical with the צרף, for the metal would surely be smoothed by him who moulded it. On the other hand, the הוֹלֶם פַעַם, “the smiter on the anvil,” is identical with the חרשׁ; for he that works at the anvil makes the iron body, makes the nails, and fastens the image with them. “The smoother with the hammer” is the subject of אֹמֵר, for he has made the soldering, and by the call “it is good” he cheers “the smith” to continue and complete the work that consists in fastening the image with nails to the place where it is to be set up. “It is good,” comp. Exo_2:2; Gen_1:4; Gen_1:8, etc. מַסְמְרִים, “clavi,” only here in Isaiah. Comp. Jer_10:3-5, which passage is evidently copied after ours and Isa_40:19 sq.; Isa_44:9-17; Isa_46:6 sq. לאימוט, comp. Isa_40:20.
Footnotes:
[1]shall renew.
[2]Then shall come, they shall speak.
[3]We will come.
[4]Heb. Righteousness.
[5]His sword shall make them as dust, his bow, etc.
[6]Heb. in peace.
[7]He returns not the way on his foot-prints.
[8]he that called.
[9]Heb. Be strong.
[10]the smith.
[11]Or, founder.
[12]Or, the smiting.
[13]Or, Saying of the soder, It is good.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 1. Islands — Poetical variation for lands — all…
1. Islands — Poetical variation for lands — all maritime lands and countries round about: here, the whole heathen world. It had just transpired, (Isa_40:31,) that those trusting in Jehovah “shall renew their strength,” etc. The summons now is, to the heathen world also to gather as best they can, and come into controversy with God.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 1. Jehovah calls the heathen nations to a disputation…
1. Jehovah calls the heathen nations to a disputation concerning the appearance of Cyrus.
Keep silence before me] A pregnant constr. in the Heb. = Listen in silence unto me. On islands, see on ch. Isa_40:15.
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renew their strength] The words are somewhat suspicious, as they are repeated from ch. Isa_40:31, and the thought is hardly suitable at the beginning of an argument. Job_38:3 is not an exact parallel. Possibly the eye of a scribe may have wandered to the previous verse.
judgment] (mishpâṭ) is used in the same sense as in Mal_3:5 (= “judicial process.”) Cf. Jdg_4:5.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (1) O islands.—See Note on Isa_40:15.
XLI.
(1) O islands.—See Note on Isa_40:15.
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Let the people renew their strength . . .—The same phrase as in Isa_40:31, but here, perhaps, with a touch of irony. The heathen are challenged to the great controversy, and will need all their “strength” and “strong reasons” if they accept the challenge. In what follows we have to think of the prophet as having, like Balaam, a vision of what shall come to pass in the “latter days” (Num_24:20), and seeing not only the forms of the old empires on their way to Hades, as in Isa_14:9-12, but the appearance on the scene of the new conqueror.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Vers. 1-7. ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE DELIVERER, AND EFFECT ON…
Vers. 1-7. ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE DELIVERER, AND EFFECT ON THE SURROUNDING NATIONS. Isaiah returns to the standpoint of Isa_40:9-11. A deliverer of Israel is about to appear. The nations are therefore summoned to attend, and consider the facts (ver. 1). He will carry all before him (vers 2, 3), being raised up by God (ver. 4). The nations will tremble, and seek the protection of their idol-deities (vers. 5-7).
Keep silence before me, O islands. God is the speaker. The "islands," or maritime lands of Western Asia, are to be silent before him, pondering the facts with a view to future argument. "Then let them speak" (see vers. 21-29). Let the people renew their strength; rather, the peoples or the nations; i.e. the inhabitants of the maritime tracts. To judgment; i.e. to a discussion, which shall terminate in a right verdict.
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HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON Vers. 1-7. Argument with the nations.
Jehovah calls the countries to "come silently" unto him. Let the people pluck up what strength they may have, and let the cause between them and Jehovah come to the tribunal of reason. Have the idols any spiritual power? or is Jehovah only the true God?
1. THE VICTORIOUS CAREER OF CYRUS. This great man has, in the prophet"s thought, a vocation from God. He is the minister of the Divine righteousness. (Isa_42:6 Isa_45:13) Cyrus is supported by the unseen might of Jehovah, who gives peoples into his hands, makes him tread on the necks of kings, whose swords turn to dust, whose warlike bow becomes as powerless as stubble driven before the blast. On the hero goes, in swift; pursuit, penetrating into trackless districts, or those inaccessible to the ordinary traveller, where he cannot be followed. Or the meaning may be, his passage is swift as that of eagle or vulture, (Isa_46:11) and he leaves no trace of his feet behind. Now, "who hath produced and carried out this?" "In all religions men have found it necessary, in any great action, to engage some other agent and principle beside the man himself. The god becomes coadjutor in every noble or heroic achievement. Homer brings in Diomed and Ulysses, assisted by Mars and Pallas one notable for acts of valour, and the other for those of counsel and wisdom; and the like is said of many others." And now which of the heathen gods has been the coadjutor of Cyrus? Why, he has come to overthrow the worshippers of the heathen gods. The deities are chiefly bound up with the futures of their peoples, and with them they fall. Who, then, can have raised up the great conqueror and destroyer, but he who alone abides who called forth the generations from the beginning of "the vanished past and the vanishing present," who is Alpha and Omega, who preceded all, and will be self-existent in the ages to come. The expression, "I am he," briefly and suggestively conveys this idea of self-existence, of eternity: (Isa_43:10, 13 46:4 48:12 Deu_32:39 Psa_102:28) "Thou art he, and thy years will not come to an end." Also Psa_44:5. "The nameless, he whose nod is Nature"s birth.
II THE ANXIETY OF THE PEOPLES. The decision of the question is postponed; but a scene of alarm among the peoples is depicted. They have heard the news of Cyrus"s conquests; the world is shuddering with apprehension. They huddle together like a frightened flock of sheep, trying to impart to one another a courage not really felt. The carpenter and the caster and the goldsmith are all busy among the Western nations, making "a particularly good and strong set of gods." A significant touch is the last one is strengthening an idol with nails, for fear it should fall, which would be an omen full of dread, as the fall of Dagon of the Philistines may remind us. And so, even as Elijah with the worshippers of Baal, the prophet employs that irony and ridicule which is the test of truth, against the idolaters. And the scene may be regarded as a standing satire against all weak, anxious, fussy resort to human means and devices, and to idle superstitions, when the name of true religion has been paralyzed, when faith in the spiritual and eternal is extinct. J.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON Vers. 1-7. The false refuge and the true.
In the regulation of his life, a wise man will give a large place to the consideration of what resources he will have in the times of great emergency. For he knows that such times must come to him as they come to all men, and when they come there is urgent and even terrible need of a refuge to which the stricken soul may flee. We are here reminded of
I THE REFUGE WHICH IS FALSE, AND WHICH WILL FAIL US. (Vers. 5-7.) We smile with pity, perhaps even a contemptuous pity, as we read of the carpenter and the smith joining their labour in order to produce the well-made idol, before which the offerings shall be presented, etc. But may it not be that those who watch us from above, and who are so much wiser than we, sometimes sigh, not contemptuously but sadly, as they see us putting our trust and finding our refuge in that which is little better than the carefully manufactured image? When trouble has come, or when dangers thicken, when the heart is agitated or concerned, then the foolish sometimes resort to their idols to those things which are nearly as impotent and as untrustworthy as these.
1. To the stimulant or the drug.
2. To the social excitement or the stress of business engagement.
3. To the comfort of human affection.
But these are wholly unsatisfactory, because:
1. They are not on a level with the height of our spiritual nature; they arenot worthy of us who are created in the image of God, and who are bound to find, in our sorrows and our straits, a resource which answers to the spiritual powers we have received of him.
2. They are transient in their influence; they gradually become lessefficacious, and at last lose all power to soothe and to sustain.
3. They themselves are temporary; at any moment they may be removedfrom our sight and grasp.
II THE REFUGE WHICH IS TRUE, AND ON WHICH WE MAY CONFIDENTLY RELY. (Vers. 2-4.) It is none other than the living God himself. "In the time of trouble he will hide us in his pavilion." There are three strong assurances of Divine succour.
1. Particular instances of Divine interposition. (Vers. 2, 8.) The God who raised up Cyrus, who constrained him to answer his own Divine ends, who empowered him to do such great things, and to triumph over such serious obstacles, is One who evidently gives heed to individual souls, and who both can and will select the very instruments which are needed to work out the redemption for which we are waiting and hoping. He who similarly raised up Luther, Zwingle, Calvin, Tyndale, Knox, etc., to take their place and do their work when such men as they were wanted, will not fail us in our emergency now.
2. His government of the whole human race. Who hath wrought and done it, calling the generations from the beginning?" All human history attests the presence, the power, the righteousness, the providence, of the Lord.
3. His Divine nature. "I the Lord, the First, and with the last, I am he." In God, our Father and our Saviour, we have
(1) One who, whatever passes, will be always with us; (Mat_28:20) and
(2) One who, whatever changes, remains constantly the same. C. (Joh_13:1 Heb_13:8)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Keep silence before Me, O islands
Isa_41:1
Keep silence before Me, O islands
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The convocation of the nations
(whole chapter):--The conception of this passage is superb.
Jehovah is represented as summoning the earth, as far as the remote isles of the west, to determine once and for ever who is the true God: whether He, or the idols and oracles of which there were myriads worshipped and believed in by every nation under heaven. The test proposed is a very simple one. The gods of the nations were to predict events in the near future, or to show that they had had a clear understanding of the events of former days. On the other hand, the servant of Jehovah was prepared to show how fast-sealed prophecies, committed to the custody of his race, had been precisely verified in the event, and to utter minute predictions about Cyrus, the one from the East, which should be fulfilled before that generation had passed away. Not, as in Elijahs case, would the appeal be made to the descending flame; but to the fitting of prophecy and historical fact. Immediately there is a great commotion, the isles see and fear, the ends of the earth tremble, they draw near and come to the judgment-seat. On their way thither each bids the other take courage. There is an industrious furbishing up of the dilapidated idols, and manufacturing of new ones. The carpenter encourages the goldsmith; and he that smooths with the hammer him that smites the anvil. They examine the soldering to see if it will stand, and drive great nails to render the idols steadfast. The universal desire is to make a strong set of gods who will be able to meet the Divine challenge--much as if a Roman Catholic priest were to regild and repaint the images of the saints on the time-worn altar of a fishing hamlet, in the hope of securing from them greater help in quelling the winter storms. Amidst the excitement of this vast convocation the idols are dumb. We can almost see them borne into the arena by their attendant priests, resplendent in gold and tinsel, flashing with jewels, bedizened in gorgeous apparel. They are set in a row, their acolytes swing high the censer, the monotonous drawl of their votaries arises in supplication. Silence is proclaimed that they may have an opportunity of pronouncing on the subject submitted to them; but they are speechless. Jehovah pronounces the verdict against which there can be no appeal, Behold, ye are of nothing, and your work of nought; an abomination is he that chooseth you (Isa_41:24). As Jehovah looks, there is no one. When He asks of them, there is no counsellor that can answer a word. Behold they are all vanity; their works are nought; their molten images are wind and confusion. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
Heathen oracles and Scripture prophecy
History furnishes some interesting confirmations of this contrast between the predictions of heathen oracles and the clear prophecies of Old Testament Scripture, which were so literally and minutely realised. For instance, Herodotus tells us that when Croesus heard of the growing power of Cyrus, he was so alarmed for his kingdom, that he sent rich presents to the oracles at Delphi, Dodona, and elsewhere, asking what would be the outcome of his victorious march. That at Delphi gave this ambiguous reply, That he would destroy a great empire, but whether the empire would be that of Cyrus or of Croesus was left unexplained: thus, whichever way the event turned, the oracle could claim to have predicted it. This is a fair illustration of the manner in which the oracles answered the appeals made to them by men or nations when in the agony of fear. How striking a contrast the precise prediction of these pages which give us the name of the conqueror; the quarter from which he would fall upon Babylon; the marvellous series of successes that gave kings as dust to his sword, and as the driven stubble to his bow; his reverence towards God, his simplicity and integrity of purpose (Isa_41:2; Isa_14:3; Isa_14:25; Isa_45:1). (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
A drama
In form the chapter is dramatic. Two great debates are imagined: the first (Isa_41:1-7) between Jehovah and the nations; the second (Isa_41:21-29) between Jehovah and the idols, the subject of both being the appearance of Cyrus. In the intervening passage (Isa_41:8-20) Jehovah encourages His servant Israel in view of this great crisis of history. (Prof. J. Skinner, D. D.)
A trial at law
Chapter 41. is loosely cast in the same form of a trial at law which we found in chapter 1. (Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D.)
Gods response to Israels complaint
In reply to Israels complaint Isa_40:27) that his cause against the heathen oppressors is neglectedor dismissed by the Great Judge, God now summons the nations to His court of justice; and as Israel had just been assured that, if they would wait upon Jehovah, they would renew their strength and discern His wisdom, an interval is granted to the heathen and their gods, in which they too may renew their strength and have time to produce evidence of the powers of design and action possessed by their gods, and in virtue of which they claim the right to keep Israel in subjection. The solemn pause thus allowed--Keep silence . . . then let them speak--is filled (how bitter the irony!)by the nations employing their carpenters and goldsmiths m make a particularly good and strong set of gods, because there is a general alarm that the emergency is great. For it is already seen that the judgment goes against them by default: that these gods can show no plans, can do nothing good or bad; and that they and their worshippers have neither right nor power to break up the designs of Almighty wisdom. They have been trying to do this by those oppressions of Israel which were only permitted for a time, because they fell into and formed a part of Gods own plan. But Israel had from the first an appointed and chief place in that plan: He who is at once King of Israel and God of all the earth, has been maintaining His chosen people in their place, generation after generation, when He made Abraham His friend, and gave the blessing to his seed, and then He made the well yield springs of water under the rod of Moses; and now, though they are reduced to extremity of weakness and dismay, the Holy One of Israel bids them fear not, for He has taken upon Himself to be their Redeemer. (Sir E. Strachey, Bart.)
A lawsuit
If Jehovah is a party, who then is the presiding judge? This question is to be answered as in Isa_5:3. The decisive authority is reason, which must acknowledge the state of the case and the conclusions following therefrom. (P. Delitzsch, D. D.)
A fair trial
1. The cause of God and His kingdom is not afraid of s fair trial. If the case be but fairly stated it will be surely carried in favour of religion.
2. The enemies of Gods Church and His holy religion may safely be challenged to say and do their worst for the support of their unrighteous cause. (M. Henry.)
Islands
A characteristic word of the second half of Isaiah occurring twelve times. In the general usage of the Old Testament it denotes the islands and coastlands of the Mediterranean (comp the use of the singular by Isaiah in Isa_20:6). Etymologically, it probably means simply habitable lands; and this prophet uses it with great laxity, hardly distinguishing it from lands (Isa_42:15). (Prof. J. Skinner, D. D.)
Solemn pleadings for revival
We also who worship the Lord God have a controversy with Him. We have not seen His Church and His cause prospering in the world as we could desire; as yet heathenism is not put to the rout by Christianity, neither does the truth everywhere trample down error. We desire to reason with God about this, and He Himself instructs us how to prepare for this sacred debate. He bids us be silent; He bids us consider, and then draw near to Him with holy boldness and plead with Him, produce our cause and bring forth our strong reasons.
I. FIRST, THEN, LET US BE SILENT.
1. Before the controversy opens let us be silent with solemn awe, for we have to speak with the Lord God Almighty! Let us not open our mouths to impugn His wisdom, nor allow our hearts to question His love. We are going to make bold to speak with Him, but still He is the eternal God, and we are dust and ashes. It is the glory of God to conceal a thing, and if He chooses to conceal it, let it be concealed. Truly, God is good to Israel, and His mercy endureth for ever.
2. Our silence of awe should deepen into that of shame; for, though it is true that the cause of God has not prospered, whoso fault is this?
3. Go further than this, and keep the silence of consideration. This is a noisy age, and the Church of Christ herself is too noisy. We have very little silent worship, I fear. Let us be silent, now, for a minute, and consider what it is that we desire of the Lord. The conversion of thousands, the overthrow of error, the spread of the Redeemers kingdom. Think in your minds what the blessings are which your soul pants after. Suppose they were to be now bestowed, are you ready? If thousands of converts were to be born unto this one Church, are you prepared to teach them and comfort them? You pray for grace--are you using the grace you have? You want to see more power--how about the power you have? Are you employing it? If a mighty wave of revival sweeps over London, are your hearts ready? Are your hands ready? Are your purses ready? If you reflect, you will see that God is able to give His Church the largest blessing, and to give it at any time. Keep silence and consider, and you will see that He can give the blessing by you or by me. Ask yourselves in the quiet of your spirits, what can we do to get the blessing? Are we doing that?
4. Then we shall pass on to the silence of attention. Keep silence that God may speak to you. We cannot expect Him to hear us if We will not hear Him.
5. If you have learned attention, be silent with submission.
II. In that silence LET US RENEW OUR STRENGTH. Noise wears us; silence feeds us, To run upon the Masters errands is always well, but to sit at the Masters feet is quite as necessary; or, like the angels which excel in strength, our power to do His commandments arises out of our hearkening to the voice of His Word. But how happens it that such silence renews our strength?
1. It does so by giving space for the strengthening word to come into the soul, and the energy of the Holy Spirit to be really felt.
2. We must be silent to renew our strength, by using silence for consideration as to who it is that we are dealing with. We are going to speak with God about the weakness of His Church, and the slowness of its progress. We are coming to plead now with One whose arm is not shortened, and whose ear is not heavy. Renew your strength as you think of Him. Hath not the Lord said concerning His beloved Son that He shall divide the spoil with the strong, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hands? Shall it not be so? Think, too, that you are about to appeal to the Holy Spirit. What cannot the Spirit of God do?
3. In silence, too, let us renew our strength by remembering His promises. There are a thousand promises. Let us think of that, and however difficult the enterprise may be, and however dark our present prospects, we shall not dare to doubt when Jehovah has spoken and pledged His Word.
4. Our strength will be renewed next, if in silence we yield up to God all our own wisdom and strength.
5. Keep silence, then, ye saints, till ye have felt your folly and your weakness, and then renew your strength most gloriously by casting yourselves upon the strength of God.
III. Our text proceeds to add, Then let them draw near. You that know the Lord DRAW NEAR. You are silent, you have renewed your strength, now enjoy access with boldness. The condition in which to intercede for others is not that of distance from God, but that of great nearness to Him. Even thus did Abraham draw nigh when he pleaded for Sodom and Gomorrah.
1. Let us remember how near we really are. We are one with Christ, and members of His body. How could we be nearer?
2. You are coming to a Father.
3. The desire in our heart for Gods glory and the extension of His Church, is a desire written there by the Holy Spirit.
4. What we ask, if we are about to plead with God concerning His kingdom, is according to His own mind.
5. Moreover, there is this further consideration; the Lord loves to be pleaded with. He might have given all the covenant blessings without prayer; wherefore does He compel us to use entreaties, unless it be that He loves to hear the voices of His children?
IV. I now come to the last point, which is, LET US SPEAK. Be silent, renew your strength, draw near, and then speak. What have we to say upon the matter which concerns us?
1. Let us first speak in the spirit of adoring gratitude. How sweet to think that there should be a Saviour at all. To think that there should be a heavenly kingdom set up, as it is set up; that it should have made such advances as it has made, and should still grow mightily!
2. Next, let us speak in humble expostulation.
3. Then turn to pleading.
4. Let us speak in the way of dedication.
5. Let us speak still in the way of confidence. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Silence and speech before God
God addresses men here by two designations, the one having reference to their remoteness and isolation, and the other to their unity. The series of injunctions begins with silence and ends with speech. Right silence before God, passing on through stirring up of energy and earnest confiding approach, issues m speech. We shall consider the beginning and the end of this series--silence before God and speech to God.
I. SILENCE BEFORE GOD. Shall we not be silent in the endeavour to realise that God is, and what He is? Would not this do more for us than any urging of ourselves or any kind of activity and noise whatever? And can anything have its proper effect on our soul without this? If we but realise with ourselves that we have to do with an Infinite One, that there is One Being of spotless perfection, almighty power, unchangeableness, boundless love, complete and earnest opposition to evil, what an effect this will produce on us! Unless we can bear to be silent and brood, the thought of God will not rise before us in fulness and splendour. But God speaks, and we must listen in silence. With what glad silence should we listen to the Divine voice. A single word of God must be worth more to us than all other words. When we read the Word of God we should say to ourselves, Hush! God is speaking. We should listen to it as a message conveying what we are to believe and embrace and ponder and do. We may spoil everything by letting the murmur of our own thoughts arise. Our silence in the presence of God will often take the form of thinking of ourselves. Thinking of self becomes sincere and profitable when it goes on consciously in Gods presence. The felt presence of God revives memory, prevents besetting self-deception, and turns the survey of the future from chaotic dreams into earnest outlook. Can any man make such a survey, however imperfectly, without shame? Shame makes him silent. He who knows the bitterness of being put to silence in the presence of God, will scarcely be without experience of the sweetness of silent satisfaction and rest. He will be led to see such a graciousness in God, such a benign healing aspect of His mercy, such a fulness in Christ, such a might of forgiveness, such a sublime oblivion, that he will feel for a while as if he had nothing more to ask. This satisfaction passes into expectation.
II. SPEECH TO GOD FOLLOWING UPON THE SILENCE. Silence before God in which such thoughts as these go on leads to a stirring of the soul, a forth-putting of endeavour, and a drawing near to God. Silence before God heaps a load on the heart which can only be thrown off by speaking to God. One thing after another brings fresh penitence, new discovery of sin, new sense of the greatness of God; new fears spring up, new resolutions gather, and all these weigh very heavily. And much more than freedom from pressure will be experienced. The convictions that gather in silence will be strengthened by speech. If they did not find expression they would begin to decay. In short, speaking to God of the things that have lain on the soul in its silence is a necessity at once for relief, for understanding, for intensity, for permanence, and for growth, It would be a wrong inference to draw from this passage that one ought not to speak to God without consciously going through these stages of the text. There may be true speaking to God which seems to break forth at once and immediately from the soul. It is not always a bad sign when we feel that we cannot speak, but must be silent before God. This state is not, indeed, to be prolonged. Nor must it be a dull, dead, distant silence, but one that has its own peculiar activities. Hasting to cut short the period of silence may enervate and chill. The silence may be more acceptable to God for the time than any words could be. We should expect times of silence before God--times in which speaking to God is not indeed absent, but in which silence is the dominating element. If it is a silence before God, it is a leaving of space for God to speak, and surely this is implied in communion. (J. Leckie, D. D.)
The silence of reverence
The silence of reverence is the soil in which earnestness and energy grow. By this reverent silence resolution takes shape and gathers force. Men gird up their energies afresh when in solemn silence they have gone over the actualities and the possibilities of life. Then with purpose and intensity they come near to God. (J. Leckie, D. D.)
The relief of speech after silence
You may have seen a reservoir of water which, by continuous rain, had become so full that it threatened to overflow all its banks or burst them--the rain through days and nights had been pouring on its broad bosom, and the brooks and rills from miles around had been hurrying their foaming tributes into it, till the ordinary small outlet is wholly unable to relieve the immense pressure, and the very edge of ruin is reached, when, lo! the great sluice is raised, and away rushes the pent-up flood in immense volume. There is relief and safety at once. So is it with the burdened soul on which silence before God has been laying load after load, pressing and crushing it with memories, convictions, fears, resolutions. Relief and freedom are gained by pouring out the soul in words before God. (J. Leckie, D. D.)
Conviction aided by both silence and speech
In silence there is the rooting of conviction, but in speaking to God its expansion and growth. When you have hyacinths in water glasses, you put them first in darkness for some weeks till the roots strike down into the water. You find that the roots have spread and filled the glass, but there is scarcely a sign of growth upward, the stalk remains undeveloped. Light is needed for that. So speech to God is needed to raise and expand the feelings that have been rooted in silence. (J. Leckie, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain Isaiah 41
CHAPTER VII
GOD: AN ARGUMENT FROM HISTORY
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Isaiah 41
HAVING revealed Himself to His own people in chapter 40, Jehovah now turns in chapter 41 to the heathen, but, naturally, with a very different kind of address. Displaying His power to His people in certain sacraments, both of nature and history, He had urged them to "wait upon Him" alone for the salvation, of which there were as yet no signs in the times. But with the heathen it is evidently to these signs of the times, that He can best appeal. Contemporary history, facts open to every mans memory and reason, is the common ground on which Jehovah and the other gods can meet. Chapter 41 is, therefore, the natural complement to chapter 40. In chapter 40 we havethe element in revelation that precedes history: in chapter 12 we have history itself explained as a part of revelation.
Chapter 41 is loosely cast in the same form of a Trial-at-Law which we found in chapter 1 To use a Scotticism, which exactly translates the Hebrew of Isa_41:1, Jehovah goes "to the law" with the idols. His summons to the Trial is given in Isa_41:1; the ground of the Trial is advanced in Isa_41:2-7. Then comes a digression, Isa_41:8-20, in which the Lord turns from controversy with the heathen to comfort His people. In Isa_41:21-29 Jehovahs plea is resumed, and in the silence of the defendants-a silence, which, as we shall presently see by calling in the witness of a Greek historian, was actual fact-the argument is summed up and the verdict given for the sole divinity of Israels God.
The main interest of the Trial lies, of course, in its appeal to contemporary history, and to the central figure Cyrus, although it is to be noted that the prophet as yet refrains from mentioning the hero by name. This appeal to contemporary history lays upon us the duty of briefly indicating, how the course of that history was tending outside Babylon, -outside Babylon, as yet, but fraught with fate both to Babylon and to her captives.
Nebuchadrezzar, although he had virtually succeeded to the throne of the Assyrian, had not been able to repeat from Babylon that almost universal empire, which his predecessors had swayed from Nineveh. Egypt, it is true, was again as thoroughly driven from Asia as in the time of Sargon: to the south the Babylonian supremacy was as unquestioned as ever the Assyrian had been. But to the north Nebuchadrezzar met with an almost equal rival, who had helped him in the overthrow of Nineveh, and had fallen heir to the Assyrian supremacy in that quarter. This was Kastarit or Kyaxares, an Aryan, one of the pioneers of that Aryan invasion from the East, which, though still tardy and sparse, was to be the leading force in Western Asia for the next century. This Kyaxares had united under his control a number of Median tribes, a people of Turanian stock. With these, when Nineveh fell, he established to the north of Nebuchadrezzars power the empire of Media, with its western boundary at the river Halys, in Asia Minor, and its capital at Ecbatana under Mount Elwand. It is said that the river Indus formed his frontier to the east. West of the Halys, the Medes progress was stopped by the Lydian Empire, under King Alyattis, whose capital was Sardis, and whose other border was practically the coast of the AEgean. In 585, or two years after the destruction of Jerusalem, Alyattis and Kyaxares met in battle on the Halys. But the terrors of an eclipse took the heart to fight out of both their armies, and, Nebuchadrezzar intervening, the three monarchs struck a treaty among themselves, and strengthened it by intermarriage. Western Asia now virtually consisted of the confederate powers, Babylonia, Media, and Lydia.
Let us realise how far this has brought us. When we stood with Isaiah in Jerusalem, our western horizon lay across the middle of Asia Minor in the longitude of Cyprus. It now rests upon the Aegean; we are almost within sight of Europe. Straight from Babylon to Sardis runs a road, with a regular service of couriers. The court of Sardis holds domestic and political intercourse with the courts of Babylon and Ecbatana; but the court of Sardis also lords it over the Asiatic Greeks, worships at Greek shrines, will shortly be visited by Solon and strike an alliance with Sparta. In the time of the Jewish exile there were without doubt many Greeks in Babylon; men may have spoken there with Daniel, who had spoken at Sardis with Solon.
This extended horizon makes clear to us what our prophet has in his view, when in this forty-first chapter he summons "Isles" to the bar of Jehovah: "Be silent before me, O Isles, and let Peoples renew their strength,"-a vision and appeal which frequently recur in our prophecy. "Listen, O Isles, and hearken, O Peoples from afar"; {Isa_49:1} "Isles shall wait for His law"; {Isa_42:4} "Let them give glory to Jehovah, and publish His praise in the Isles"; {Isa_42:12} "Unto me Isles shall hope"; {Isa_51:5} "Surely Isles shall wait for me, ships of Tarshish first." The name is generally taken by scholars-according to the derivation in the note below-to have originally meant "habitable land," and so "land" as opposed to water. In some passages of the Old Testament it is undoubtedly used to describe a land either washed, or surrounded, by the sea.
But by our prophets use of the word it is not necessarily "maritime provinces" that are meant. He makes isles parallel to the well-known terms "nations, peoples, Gentiles," and in one passage he opposes it, as dry soil, to water. Hence many translators take it in its original sense of "countries or lands." This bare rendering, however, does not do justice to the sense of "remoteness," which the prophet generally attaches to the word, nor to his occasional association of it with visions of the sea. Indeed, as one reads most of his uses of it, one is quite sure that the island-meaning of the word lingers on in his imagination; and that the feeling possesses him, which has haunted the poetry of all ages, to describe as "coasts" or "isles" any land or lighting-place of thought which is far and dim and vague; which floats across the horizon, or emerges from the distance, as strips and promontories of land rise from the sea to him who has reached some new point of view. I have therefore decided to keep the rendering familiar to the English reader, "isles," though, perhaps, "coasts" would be better. If, as is probable, our prophets thoughts are always towards the new lands of the west as he uses the word, it is doubly suitable; those countries were both maritime and remote; they rose both from the distance and from the sea.
"The sprinkled isles, Lily on lily, that oerlace the sea
And laugh their pride, where the light wave lisps, Greece."
But if Babylonia lay thus open to Lydia, and through Lydia to the "isles" and "coasts" of Greece, it was different with her northern frontier. What strikes us here is the immense series of fortifications, which Nebuchadrezzar, in spite of his alliance with Astyages, cast up between his country and Media. Where the Tigris and Euphrates most nearly approach one another, about seventy miles to the north of Babylon, Nebuchadrezzar connected their waters by four canals above which he built a strong bulwark, called by the Greeks the Median wall. This may have been over sixty miles long; Xenophon tells us it was twenty feet broad by one hundred high. At Sippara this line of defence was completed by the creation of a great bason of water to flood the rivers and canals on the approach of an enemy, and of a large fortress to protect the bason. Alas for the vanity of human purposes! It is said to have been this very bason which caused the easy fall of Babylon. By turning the Euphrates into it, the enemy entered the capital through the emptied river-bed.
The triple alliance-Lydia, Media, Babylonia-stood firm after its founders passed away. In 555, Croesus and Astyages, who had succeeded their fathers at Sardis and Ecbatana respectively, and Nabunahid, who had usurped the throne at Babylon, were still at peace, and contented with the partition of 585. But outside them and to the east, in a narrow nook of land at the head of the Persian Gulf, the man was already crowned, who was destined to bring Western Asia again under one sceptre. This was Kurush or Cyrus II of Anzan, but known to history as Cyrus the Great or Cyrus the Persian. Cyrus was a prince of the Akhaemenian house of Persia, and therefore, like the Mede, an Aryan. but independent of his Persian cousins, and ruling in his own right the little kingdom of Anzan or Anshan, which, with its capital of Susan, lay on the rivers Choaspes and Eulaeus, between the head of the Persian Gulf and the Zagros Mountains.
Cyrus the Great is one of those mortals whom the muse of history, as if despairing to do justice to him by herself, has called in her sisters to aid her in describing to posterity. Early legend and later and more elaborate romance; the schoolmaster, the historian, the tragedian, and the prophet, all vie in presenting to us this hero "le plus sympathique de lantiquite"-this king on whom we see so deeply stamped the double signature of God, character and success. We shall afterwards have a better opportunity to speak of his character. Here we are only concerned to trace his rapid path of conquest.
He sprang, then, from Anshan, the immediate neighbour of Babylonia to the east. This is the direction indicated in the second verse of this forty-first chapter (Isa_41:2): "Who hath raised up one from the east?" But the twenty-fifth verse veers round with him to the north (Isa_41:25): "I have raised up one from the north, and he is come." This was actually the curve, from east to north, which his career almost immediately took.
For in 549 Astyages, king of Media, attacked Cyrus, king of Anshan; which means that Cyrus was already a considerable and an aggressive prince. Probably he had united by this time the two domains of his house, Persia and Anshan, under his own sceptre, and secured as his lieutenant Hystaspes, his cousin, the lineal king of Persia. The Mede, looking south and east from Ecbatana, saw a solid front opposed to him, and resolved to crush it before it grew more formidable. But the Aryans among the Medes, dissatisfied with so indolent a leader as Astyages, revolted to Cyrus, and so the latter, with characteristic good fortune, easily became lord of Media. A lenient lord he made. He spared Astyages, and ranked the Aryan Medes second only to the Persians. But it took him till 546 to complete his conquest. When he had done so he stood master of Asia from the Halys to perhaps as far east as the Indus. He replaced the Medes in the threefold power of Western Asia, and thus looked down on Babylon, as verse 25 says, "from the north". {Isa_41:25}
In 545, Cyrus advanced upon Babylonia, and struck at the northern line of fortifications at Sippara. He was opposed by an army under Belshazzar, Bel-sharuzzur, the son of Nabunahid, and probably by his mothers side grandson of Nebuchadrezzar. Army or fortifications seem to have been too much for Cyrus, and there is no further mention of his name in the Babylonian annals till the year 538. It has been suggested that Cyrus was aware of the discontent of the people with their ruler Nabunahid, and, with that genius which distinguished his whole career for availing himself of the internal politics of his foes, he may have been content to wait till the Babylonian dissatisfaction had grown riper, perhaps in the meantime fostering it by his own emissaries.
In any case, the attention of Cyrus was now urgently demanded on the western boundary of his empire, where Lydia was preparing to invade him. Croesus, king of Lydia, fresh from the subjection of the Ionian Greeks, and possessing an army and a treasure second to none in the world, had lately asked of Solon, whether he was not the most fortunate of men; and Solon had answered, to count no man happy till his death, The applicability of this advice to himself Croesus must have felt with a start, when, almost immediately after it, the news came that his brother-in-law Astyages had fallen before an unknown power, which was moving up rapidly from the east, and already touched the Lydian frontier at the Halys. Croesus was thrown into alarm. He eagerly desired to know Heavens will about this Persian and himself, who now stood face to face. But, in that heathen world, with its thousand shrines to different gods, who knew the will of Heaven? In a fashion only possible to the richest man in the world, Croesus resolved to discover, by sending a test-question, on a matter of fact within his own knowledge, to every oracle of repute: to the oracles of the Greeks at Miletus, Delphi, Able; to that of Trophonius; to the sanctuary of Amphiaraus at Thebes; to Dodona; and even to the far-off temple of Ammon in Libya. The oracles of Delphi and Amphiaraus alone sent an answer which in the least suggested the truth. "To the gods of Delphi and Amphiaraus, Croesus, therefore, offered great sacrifices, -three thousand victims of every kind; and on a great pile of wood he burned couches plated with gold and silver, golden goblets, purple robes and garments, in the hope that he would thereby gain the favour of the god yet more And as the sacrifice left behind an enormous mass of molten gold, Croesus caused bricks to be made, six palms in length, three in breadth and one in depth; in all there were 117 bricks. In addition there was a golden lion which weighed ten talents. When these were finished, Croesus sent them to Delphi; and he added two very large mixing bowls, one of gold, weighing eight talents and a half and twelve minae, and one of silver (the work of Theodorus of Samos, as the Delphians say, and I believe it, for it is the work of no ordinary artificer), four silver jars, and two vessels for holy water, one of gold, the other of silver, circular casts of silver, a golden statue of a woman three cubits high, and the necklace and girdles of his queen." We can understand, that for all this Croesus got the best advice consistent with the ignorance and caution of the priests whom he consulted. The oracles told him that if he went against Cyrus he would destroy a great empire; but he forgot to ask, whether it was his own or his rivals. When he inquired a second time, if his reign should be long, they replied: "When a mule became king of the Medes," then he might fly from his throne; but again he forgot to consider that there might be mules among men as among beasts. At the same time, the oracles tempered their ambiguous prophecies with some advice of undoubted sense, for when he asked them who were the most powerful among the Greeks, they replied the Spartans, and to Sparta he sent messengers with presents to conclude an alliance. "The Lacedaemonians were filled with joy; they knew the oracle which had been given Croesus, and made him a friend and ally, as they had previously received many kindnesses at his hands."
This glimpse into the preparations of Croesus, whose embassies compassed the whole civilised world, and whose wealth got him all that politics or religion could, enables us to realise the political and religious excitement into which Cyprus advent threw that generation. The oracles in doubt and ambiguous; the priests, the idol-manufacturers, and the crowd of artisans, who worked in every city at the furniture of the temple, in a state of unexampled activity, with bustle perhaps most like the bustle of our government dockyards on the eve of war: hammering new idols together, preparing costly oblations, overhauling the whole religious "ordnance," that the gods might be propitiated and the stars secured to fight in their courses against the Persian; rival politicians practising conciliation, and bolstering up one another with costly presents to stand against this strange and fatal force, which indifferently threatened them all. What a commentary Herodotus story furnishes upon the verses of this chapter, in which Jehovah contrasts the idols with Himself. It may actually have been Croesus and the Greeks whom the prophet had in his mind when he wrote Isa_41:5-7 : "The isles have seen, and they fear; the ends of the earth tremble: they draw near and they come. They help every man his neighbour, and to his brother each sayeth, Be strong. So carver encourageth smelter, smoother with hammer, smiter on anvil; one saith of soldering, It is good: and he fasteneth it with nails lest it totter. "The irony is severe, but true to the facts as Herodotus relates them. The statesmen hoped to keep back Cyrus by sending sobbing messages to one another, Be of good courage; the priests "by making a particularly good and strong set of gods."
While the imbecility of the idolatries was thus manifest, and the great religious centres of heathendom were reduced to utter doubt that veiled itself in ambiguity and waited to see how things would issue, there was one religion in the world, whose oracles gave no uncertain sound, whose God stepped boldly forth to claim Cyrus for His own. In the dust of Babylonia lay the scattered members of a nation captive and exiled, a people civilly dead and religiously degraded; yet it was the faith of this worm of a people which welcomed and understood Cyrus, it was the God of this people who claimed to be his author. The forty-first chapter looks dreary and ancient to the uninstructed eye, but let our imagination realise all these things: the ambiguous priests, oracles that would not speak out, religions that had no articulate counsel nor comfort in face of the conqueror who was crushing up the world before him, but only sobs, solder, and nails; and our heart will leap as we hear how God forces them all into judgment before Him, and makes His plea as loud and clear as mortal ear may hear. Clatter of idols, and murmur of muffled oracles, filling all the world; and then, hark how the voice of Jehovah crashes His oracle across it all!
"Keep silence towards Me, O Isles, and let the peoples renew their strength: let them approach; then let them speak: to the Law let us come."
"Who hath stirred up from the sunrise Righteousness, calleth it to his foot? He giveth to his face peoples, and kings He makes him to trample; giveth them as dust to his sword, as driven stubble to his bow. He pursues them, and passes to peace a road that he comes not with his feet. Who has wrought it and done it? Summoner of generations from the source, I Jehovah the First, and with the Last; I am He."
Croesus would have got a clear answer here, but it is probable that he had never heard of the Hebrews or of their God.
After this follows the satiric picture of the heathen world, which has already been quoted. And then, after an interval during which Jehovah turns to His own people (Isa_41:8-20), -for whatever be His business or His controversy, the Lord is mindful of His own, -He directs His speech specially against the third class of the leaders of heathendom. He has laughed the foolish statesmen and imagemakers out of court (Isa_41:5-7); He now challenges, in Isa_41:21, the oracles and their priests.
We have seen what these were, which this vast heathen world-heathen but human, convinced as we are that at the back of the worlds life there are a secret, a counsel, and a governor, and anxious as we are to find them - had to resort to. Timid waiters upon time, whom not even the lavishwealth of a Croesus could tempt from their ambiguity; prophets speechless in face of history; oracles of meaning as dark and shifty as their steamy caves at Delphi, of tune as variable as the whispering oak of Dodona; wily-tongued Greeks, masters of ambiguous phrase, at Miletus, Able, and Thebes; Egyptian mystics in the far-off temple of "Lybic Hammon,"-these are what the prophet sees standing at the bar of history, where God is Challenger.
"Bring here your case, saith Jehovah; apply your strong grounds, saith the King of Jacob. Let them bring out and declare unto us what things are going to happen; the first things announce what they are, that we may set our heart on them, and know the issue of them; or the things that are coming, let us hear them. Announce the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods. Yea, do good or do evil, that we may stare and see it together. Lo! ye are nothing, and your work is of nought; an abomination is he who chooseth you."
Which great challenge just means, Come and be tested by facts. Here is history needing an explanation, and running no one knows whither. Prove your divinity by interpreting or guiding it. Cease your ambiguities, and give us something we can set our minds to work upon. Or do something, effect something in history, be it good or be it evil, -only let it be patent to our senses. For the test of godhead is not ingenuity or mysteriousness, but plain deeds, which the senses can perceive, and plain words, which the reason and conscience can judge. The insistence upon the senses and mental faculties of man is remarkable: "Make us hear them, that we may know, stare, see all together, set our mind to them."
But as we have learned from Herodotus, there was nobody in the world to answer such a challenge. Therefore Jehovah Himself answers it. He gives His explanation of history, and claims its events for His doing.
"I have stirred up from the north, and he. hath come; from the rising of the sun one who calleth upon My Name: and he shall trample satraps like mortar, and as the potter treadeth out clay."
"Who hath announced on-ahead that we may know, and beforehand that we may say, Right! Yea, there is none that announced, yea, there is none that published, yea, there is none that heareth your words. But a prediction" (or predicter, literally a thing or man on-ahead-rishon corresponding to the me-rosh of Isa_41:26) "a prediction to Zion, Behold, behold them, and to Jerusalem a herald of good news-I am giving." The language here comes forth in jerks, and is very difficult to render. "But I look and there is no man even among these, and no counsellor, that I might ask them and they return word. Lo, all of them vanity! and nothingness their works; wind and waste their molten images."
Let us look a little more closely at the power of Prediction, on which Jehovah maintains His unique and sovereign Deity against the idols.
Jehovah challenges the idols to face present events, and to give a clear, unambiguous forecast of their issue. It is a debatable question, whether He does not also ask them to produce previous predictions of events happening at the time at which He speaks. This latter demand is one that He makes in subsequent chapters; it is part of His prophets argument in chapters 45-46, that Jehovah intimated the advent of Cyrus by His servants in Israel long before the present time. Whether He makes this same demand for previous predictions in chapter 41 depends on how we render a clause of Isa_41:22, "declare ye the former things." Some scholars take former things in the sense, in which it is used later on in this prophecy, of previous predictions. This is very doubtful. I have explained in a note, why I think them wrong; but even if they are right, and Jehovah be really asking the idols to produce former predictions of Cyrus career, the demand is so cursory, it proves so small an item in His plea, and we shall afterwards find so many clearer statements of it, that we do better to ignore it now and confine ourselves to emphasising the other challenge, about which there is no doubt, -the challenge to take present events and predict their issue. Croesus had asked the oracles for a forecast of the future. This is exactly what Jehovah demands in Isa_41:22, "declare unto us what things are going to happen"; in Isa_41:23, "declare the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods"; in Isa_41:26 (spoken from the standpoint of the subsequent fulfilment of the prediction), who declared it on-ahead that we may know, and beforehand that we may now say, "Right! Yea, there is none that declared, yea, there is none that published, yea, there is none that heareth your words. But a prediction unto Zion, Behold, behold them, and to Jerusalem a herald of good news-I give." I give is emphatically placed at the end, -"I Jehovah alone, through My prophets in Israel, give such a prediction and publisher of good news."
We scarcely require to remind ourselves, that this great challenge and plea are not mere rhetoric or idle boasting. Every word in them we have seen to be true to fact. The heathen religions were, as they are here represented, helpless before Cyrus, and dumb about the issue of the great movements which the Persian had started. On the other hand, Jehovah had uttered to His people all the meaning of the new stir and turmoil in history. We have heard Him do so in chapter 40. There He "gives a herald of good news to Jerusalem,"-tells them of their approaching deliverance, explains His redemptive purposes, proclaims a gospel. In addition, He has in this chapter accepted Cyrus for His own creation and as part of His purpose, and has promised him victory.
The God of Israel, then, is God, because He alone by His prophets claims facts as they stand for His own deeds, and announces what shall become of them.
Do not let us, however, fall into the easy but vulgar error of supposing, that Jehovah claims to be God simply because He can predict. It is indeed prediction, which He demands from the heathen: for prediction is a minimum of godhead, and in asking it He condescends to the heathens own ideas of what a god should be able to do. When Croesus, the heathen who of all that time spent most upon religion, sought to decide which of the gods was worthiest to be consulted about the future and propitiated in face of Cyrus, what test did be apply to them? As we have seen, he tested them by their ability to predict a matter of fact: the god who told him what he, Croesus, should be doing on a certain day was to be his god. It is evident, that, to Croesus, divinity meant to be able to divine. But the God, who reveals Himself to Israel, is infinitely greater than this. He is not merely a Being with a far sight into the future; He is not only Omniscience. In the chapter preceding this one His power of prediction is not once expressed; it is lost in the two glories by which alone the prophet seeks to commend His Godhead to Israel, -the glory of His power and the glory of His faithfulness. Jehovah is Omnipotence, Creator of heaven and earth; He leads forth the stars by "the greatness of His might"; Supreme Director of history, it is He "who bringeth princes to nothing." But Jehovah is also unfailing character: "the word of the Lord standeth for ever"; it is foolishness to say of Him that He has forgotten His people, or that "their right has passed" from Him; He disappoints none who wait upon Him. Such is the God, who steps down from chapter 40 into the controversy with the heathen in chapter 41. If in the latter He chiefly makes His claim to godhead to rest upon specimens of prediction, it is simply, as we have said, that He may meet the gods of the heathen before a bar and upon a principle, which their worshippers recognise as practical and decisive. What were single predictions, here and there, upon the infinite volume of His working, who by His power could gather all things to serve His own purpose, and in His faithfulness remained true to that purpose from everlasting to everlasting! The unity of history under One Will-this is a far more adequate idea of godhead than the mere power to foretell single events in history. And it is even to this truth that Jehovah seeks to raise the unaccustomed thoughts of the heathen. Past the rude wonder, which is all that fulfilled predictions of fact can excite, He lifts their religious sense to Himself and His purpose, as the one secret and motive of all history. He not only claims Cyrus and Cyrus career as His own work, but He speaks of Himself as "summoner of the generations from aforehand; I Jehovah, the First, and with the Last; I am He," It is a consummate expression of godhead, which lifts us far above the thought of Him as a mere divining power.
Now, it is well for us-were it only for the great historic interest of the thing, though it will also further our argument-to take record here that, although this conception of the unity of life under One Purpose and Will was still utterly foreign, and perhaps even unintelligible, to the heathen world, which the prophecy has in view, the first serious attempt in that world to reach such a conception was contemporary with the forty-first chapter of Isaiah. It is as miners feel, when tunnelling from opposite sides of a mountain, they begin to hear the noise of each others picks through the dwindling rock. We, who have come down the history of Israel towards the great consummation of religion in Christianity, may here cease for a moment our labours, to listen to the faint sound from the other side of the wall, still separating Israel from Greece, of a witness to God and an argument against idolatry similar to those with which we have been working. Who is not moved by learning, that, in the very years when Jewish prophecy reached its most perfect statement of monotheism, pouring its scorn upon the idols and their worshippers, and in the very Isles on which its hopes and influence were set, the first Greek should be already singing, who used his song to satirise the mythologies of his people, and to celebrate the unity of God? Among the Ionians, whom Cyrus invasion of Lydia and of the Aegean coast in 544 drove across the seas, was Xenophanes of Colophon. After some wanderings he settled at Elea in South Italy, and became the founder of the Eleatic school, the first philosophic attempt of the Greek mind to grasp the unity of Being. How far Xenophanes himself succeeded in this attempt is a matter of controversy. The few fragments of his poetry which are extant do not reveal him as a philosophical monotheist, so much as a prophet of "One greatest God." His language (like that of the earlier Hebrew prophets in praising Jehovah) apparently implies the real existence of lesser divinities:-
"One God, mongst both gods and men He is greatest
Neither in shape is He like unto mortals nor thought."
Xenophanes scorns the anthropomorphism of his countrymen, and the lawless deeds which their poets had attributed to the gods:-
"Mortals think the gods can be born, have their feelings, voice, and form; but, could horses or oxen draw like men, they too would make their gods after their own image."
"All things did Homer and Hesiod lay on the gods,
Such as with mortals are full of blame and disgrace,
To steal and debauch and outwit one another."
Our prophet, to whose eyes Gentile religiousness was wholly of the gross Croesus kind, little suspected that he had an ally, with such kindred tempers of faith and scorn, among the very peoples to whom he yearns to convey his truth. But ages after, when Israel and Greece had both issued into Christianity, the service of Xenophanes to the common truth was recounted by two Church writers-by Clement of Alexandria in his "Stromata," and by Eusebius the historian in his "Praeparatio Evangelica."
We find, then, that monotheism had reached its most absolute expression in Israel in the same decade in which the first efforts towards the conception of the unity of Being were just starting in Greece. But there is something more to be stated. In spite of the splendid progress, which it pursued from such beginnings, Greek philosophy never reached the height on which, with Second Isaiah, Hebrew prophecy already rests; and the reason has to do with two points on which we are now engaged, -the omnipotence and the righteousness of God.
Professor Pfleiderer remarks: "Even in the idealistic philosophy of the Greeks matter remains, however sublimated, an irrational something, with which the Divine power can never come to terms. It was only in the consciousness, which the prophets of Israel had of God, that the thought of the Divine omnipotence fully prevailed." We cannot overvalue such high and impartial testimony to the uniqueness of the Hebrew doctrine of God, but it needs to be supplemented. To the prophets sense of the Divine onmipotence, we must add their unrivalled consciousness of the Divine character. To them Jehovah is not only the Holy, the incomparable God, almighty and sublime. He is also the true, consistent God. He has a great purpose, which He has revealed of old to His people, and to which he remains forever faithful. To express this the Hebrews had one word, -the word we translate righteous. We should often miss our prophets meaning, if by righteousness we understood some of the qualities to which the term is often applied by us: if, for instance, we used it in the general sense of morality, or if we gave it the technical meaning, which it bears in Christian theology, of justification from guilt. We shall afterwards devote a chapter to the exposition of its meaning in Second Isaiah, but let us here look at its use in chapter 41. In Isa_41:26, it is applied to the person whose prediction turns out to be correct: men are to say of him "right" or "righteous." Here it is evident that the Hebrew-ssaddiq-is used in its simplest meaning, like the Latin rectus, and our "right" of what has been shown to be in accordance with truth or fact. In Isa_41:2, again, though the syntax is obscure, it seems to have the general sense of "good faith with the ability to ensure success." Righteousness is here associated with Cyrus, because he has not been called for nothing but in good faith for a purpose which will be carried through. Jehovahs righteousness, then, will be His trueness, His good faith, His consistency; and indeed this is the sense which it must evidently bear in Isa_41:10. Take it with the context: "But thou, Israel, My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, seed of Abraham who loved Me, whom I took hold of from the ends of the earth and its corners, I called thee and said unto thee, Thou art My servant. I have chosen thee, and will not cast thee away. Fear not, for I am with thee. Look not round in despair, 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." Here righteousness evidently means that Jehovah will act in good faith to the people He has called, that He will act consistently with His anciently revealed purpose towards them. Hitherto Israel has had nothing but the memory that God called them, and the conscience that He chose them. Now Jehovah will vindicate this conscience in outward fact. He will carry through His calling of His people, and perform His promise. How He will do this, He proceeds to relate. Israels enemies shall become as nothing (Isa_41:11-12). Israel himself, though a poor worm of a people, shall be changed to the utmost conceivable opposite of a worm-even "a sharp threshing instrument having teeth"-a people who shall leave their mark on the world. They shall overcome all difficulties and "rejoice in Jehovah." Their redemption shall be accomplished in a series of evident facts. "The poor and the needy are seeking water, and there is none, their tongue faileth for thirst; I, Jehovah, will answer them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them." And this shall be done on such a scale, that all the world will wonder and be convinced, Isa_41:18-19 : "I will open on the bare heights rivers, and in the midst of the plains fountains. I will make the desert a pool of water, and the dry ground water-springs. I will plant in the wilderness cedars and acacias and myrtles and olive-trees; I will plant in the desert pines, planes and sherbins together." Do not let us spoil the meaning of this passage by taking these verses literally, or even as illustrative of the kind of restoration which Israel was to enjoy. This vast figure of a well-watered and planted desert the prophet uses rather to illustrate the scale on which the Restoration will take place: its evident extent and splendour. "That they may see and know and consider and understand together, that Jehovah hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it." The whole passage, then, tells us what God means by His righteousness. It is His fidelity to His calling of Israel, and to His purpose with His people. It is the quality by which He cannot forsake His own, but carries through and completes His promises to them; by which He vindicates and justifies, in facts so large that they are evident to all mankind, His ancient word by His prophets.
This lengthened exposition will not have been in vain, if it has made clear to us, that Hebrew monotheism owed its unique quality to the emphasis, which the prophets laid upon the two truths of the Power and the Character of God. There was One Supreme Being infinite in might, and with one purpose running down the ages, which He had plainly revealed, and to which He remained constant. The people, who knew this, did not need to wait for the fulfilment of certain test-predictions before trusting Him as the One God. Test-predictions and their fulfilment might be needful for the heathen, from whose minds the idea of One Supreme Being with such a character had vanished; the heathen might need to be convinced by instances of Jehovahs omniscience, for omniscience was the most Divine attribute of which they had conceived. But Israels faith rested upon glories in the Divine nature of which omniscience was the mere consequence. Israel knew God was Almighty and All-true, and that was enough.
NOTE UPON JEHOVAHS CLAIM TO CYRUS
In Isa_41:25 a phrase is used of Cyrus which is very obscure, and to which, considering its vagueness even upon the most definite construction, far too much importance has been attached. The meaning of the words, the tenses, the syntax-perhaps even the original text itself-of this verse are uncertain. The English revisers give, I have raised up one from the north and he is come; from the rising of the sun one that calleth upon My Name. This is probably the true syntax. But in what tense is the verb to call, and what does calling upon My name mean? In the Old Testament the phrase is used in two senses, -to invoke or adore, and to proclaim or celebrate the name of a person. As long as scholars understood that Cyrus was a monotheist, there was a temptation to choose the former of these meanings, and to find in the verse Jehovahs claim upon the Persian. as a worshipper of Himself, the One True God. But this interpretation received a shock from the discovery of a proclamation of Cyrus after his entry into Babylon, in which he invokes the names of Babylonian deities, and calls himself their "servant." Of course his doing so in the year 538 does not necessarily discredit a description of him as a monotheist eight years before.-Between 598 and 546-the probable date of chapter 41-a prophet might in all good faith have hailed as a worshipper of Jehovah a Persian who still stood in the rising of the sun, -who had net yet issued from the east and its radiant repute of a religion purer than the Babylonian; although eight years afterwards, from motives of policy, the same king acknowledged the gods of his new subjects. This may be; but there is a more natural way out of the difficulty. Is it fair to lay upon the expression, calleth on My name, so precise a meaning as that of a strict monotheism? Some have turned to the other use of the verb, and, taking it in the future tense, have translated, who shall proclaim or celebrate My name, - which Cyrus surely did, when, in the name of Jehovah, he drew up the edict for the return of the Jews to Palestine. {Ezr_1:2; 2Ch_36:22-23} But do we need to put even this amount of meaning upon the phrase? In itself it is vague, but it also stands parallel to another vague phrase: I have raised up one from the north, and he is come; from the sunrising one who calleth on My name. Taken in apposition to the phrase he is come, calleth on My name may mean no more than that, answering to the instigation of Jehovah and owning His impulse, Cyrus by his career proclaimed or celebrated Jehovahs name. In any case, we have said enough to show that, in our comparative ignorance of what Cyrus faith was, and in face of the elastic use of the phrase to call on the name of, it is quite unwarrantable, to maintain that the prophet must have meant a strict monotheist, and therefore absurd to draw the inference that the prophet was incorrect. A way has been attempted out of the difficulty by slightly altering the text, and so obtaining the version, I have raised up one from the north and he is come: from the sunrise I call him by name. This is a change which is in harmony with Isa_45:3-4, but has otherwise no evidence in its favour.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain Isa_41:1-2. Keep silence before Me, &c.
THE CALL OF CYRUS A FRUIT OF THE CAPTIVITY
Isa_41:1-2. Keep silence before Me, &c.
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Behold how of old the Lord called the people and the distant nations into judgment, and condescended to plead and question with them concerning the dispensations of His providence, that they might see and know that He doeth according to His will in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. “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.” This is as it is written in the Book of Job: “Gird up now thy loins as a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou. Me.”
The question which the prophet then proposes is one concerning the future, though in our English rendering it is put all in the past tense: “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?” The Hebrew language has not the same certainty in the distinctions of time with ours; and it may be mentioned that the ancient Greek translators have put the question partly in the future, to which indeed it wholly refers. [The tenses of the Septuagint in Isa_41:2-3, are the following:—Τίς έξήγειρεν … έκάλεσεν … πορεύσεται … δώσει … έκστήσει … διώξεται … διελεύσεται.] But the prophet in spirit here takes his stand in the future, and calls into judgment and investigation the things, the persons, and events of the future, as if they were before him, ere even they had budded and sprung forth (Isa_42:9). “Who hath raised up the righteous man from the east, called him to His foot, shall give the nations before him, and make him rule over kings? shall give them as the dust to his sword, and as the driven stubble to his bow? He shall pursue them and pass safely; even by the way that he had not gone with his feet. Who hath wrought and doneit, calling the generations from the beginning? I the LORD, the first, and with the last; I am He.” Even in the first member of the sentence the meaning is really predictive of that which then existed only in God’s purpose and in the preparation of His providence, who calleth the generations from the beginning. You will perceive more clearly that it has this prophetic force if you refer to Isa_41:21-25 : “Produce your cause,” &c.
It is generally agreed that there is here a prediction of Cyrus; but what I chiefly call your attention to is, that the whole work is claimed by God as His own. It was not merely He that had predicted it, but it was He that purposed it and brought it to pass. As He saith, “Who hath wrought and done it, calling the generations from the beginning? I, the Lord, the first, and with the last; I am He.” An erroneous idea of prediction has grown up, as if God had left the things predicted utterly loose from the control of His providence, and as if the marvel were only in the foresight, and not in the power, wisdom, and faithfulness displayed in the bringing to pass. Not thus speaks the Word of God, but the prediction is the declaration of God’s purpose, and the event is His bringing it to pass. It is thus they stand related to one another (Num_23:19).
In our text, the question is not put as to the marvel involved in the prediction, but rather as to the overruling power and wisdom manifested in the doing of it. The question is not, Whose was the foresight? but, Whose was the accomplishment? To whom appertained the raising of this righteous man? Whose was his training? Whose were his victories? The fact of Cyrus’s existence, viewed together with his character, actions, and achievements, was altogether more wonderful even than the prediction of him by name. And so will it be in regard to the predicted coming and glory of Christ. Men will cease to debate of the marvel of its being predicted when they see the greater marvel of its being brought to pass. Not that the correspondence of the prediction with its fulfilment will cease to be a subject of admiration; but the actual bringing such a thing to pass from the present state of the world is harder to be conceived than the prediction of anything future.
Now Cyrus was to the Gentiles a type of the Messiah, even as David or Solomon to the Jews; and accordingly we find him spoken of as THE LORD’S ANOINTED (Isa_45:1). Comparing the things which are related of him with the history of Eastern kings and conquerors of his age or that preceding, and especially with the monstrous oppressions, butcheries, massacres, and cruelties recorded on the slabs of Nineveh, he seems like a man of another world. It is a gleam of sunshine breaking through thunder-clouds. The soberest and most truthful of the Greek philosophers (himself a statesman, general, and historian) has selected him as the pattern of a perfect prince, and made his education the theme of a most interesting and instructive book. Whence had he that education? Who raised up that righteous man from the east? called him to His foot? At whose feet was he brought up? and from whose precepts did he receive instruction in righteousness?
I think that we have here one of those examples in which the tribulation of the Lord’s people has been made to work blessing to the human race. The centribes of Israel had been carried into captivity, and were placed in Halah and Habor, by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. Their princes were made eunuchs and officers in the palaces of their conquerors, and the daughters of Israel, admired for their beauty, sought after for the music of those exquisite songs of Zion, pitied for their exile and their sorrows, and honoured for their virtue, were not unfrequently made the favourite wives of the conquerors and princes among whom they were placed in captivity. The principles and character of the captives influenced the conquerors. The kingdom of heaven wrought after its own manner, like leaven hid in three measures of meal. Now the mother of Cyrus was a Mede, the daughter of the Median king; and Cyrus, though a Persian, was educated among the Medes, where the principles of the law of the Lord were silently working. Thus the Lord called him to His foot and instructed him; and the good seed in good ground brought forth an hundred-fold. From the rising of the sun he made mention of Jehovah’s name. And so the captivity of Israel in the cities of the Medes served under the good providence of God to leaven the nation of the Medes, and to prepare an avenger of the cause of Judah upon Babylon, and a restorer of His ancient people to Jerusalem.—W. B. Galloway, M.A.: Isaiah’s Testimony for Jesus, pp. 277–282.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain God addresses men here by two designations, the one…
Isa 41:1
God addresses men here by two designations, the one having reference to their remoteness and isolation, and the other to their unity. To the Hebrew all distant places were islands. They were afar, scattered and lonely. Keeping silence before God and renewing strength are duties prescribed to all men, as are also the coming near and the speaking. The series of injunctions begins with silence and ends in speech.
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I. Silence before God. (1) Shall we not be silent in the endeavour to realise that God is, and what He is? Unless we can bear to be silent and brood, the thought of God will not rise before us in fulness and splendour. (2) God speaks and we must listen in silence. With what glad silence should we listen to the Divine voice! Every one that would be truly in heart and soul God’s must have times when he is purely passive and recipient, letting the word of God, in small select portions, drop into his soul in silence, his only effort being to realise that God is speaking. (3) Our silence in the presence of God will often take the form of thinking of ourselves. Thinking of self becomes sincere and profitable when it goes on consciously in God’s presence.
II. Speech to God, following upon the silence. Silence before God leads to a stirring of the soul, a forth-putting of endeavour and a drawing nearer to God. Silence before God heaps a load on the heart, which can only be thrown off by speaking to God. Words before God give a relief that nothing else can. The relief will be in proportion to the entireness of the outpouring and to the nearness to God. If a man does not come near to God in confidence and trust, the relief obtained even by thousands of words will be small. But coming near to God and speaking to Him will relieve any soul, however burdened. And much more than freedom from pressure will be experienced. The convictions that gather in silence will be strengthened by speech. If they did not find expression they would begin to decay. Light injures roots, but it is needed for branches. In silence there is the rooting of conviction, but in speaking to God its expansion and growth.
J. Leckie, Sermons Preached at Ibrox, p. 81.
References: Isa 41:1.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxi., No. 1215; Ibid., Evening by Evening, p. 2.
Isa 41:4
I. Look at God in His primary relation to His creature. "I the Lord, First." Understand clearly that everything which is was first an idea in the mind of God. Thence, by a creative act, it came forth and took form and being. So God was First, long before all His works—as the mould is before the castings. Here is the truth and glory of predestination, that great argument of all comfort. It places God far away, beyond our little horizon, in advance of everything. Whatever is, is to fulfil its preordained purpose; each thing coming up and rising in its turn; everything a reflection of the eternal love, care, and wisdom, which dwelt from everlasting in the mind of God.
II. "With the Last." God is the God of the years that are past. There are those who say, "This world is on the decline and growing worse." Can it be, if He who was First is with the Last—the same God yesterday, today, and for ever, the equal portion of all times? Is it not sufficient argument? The golden age cannot be over. From the fleeting and the changing, from the disappointing and the dying, I yearn to ask, "Where is the true?" Where is that which my soul wants, and for which my restless spirit has so long been craving, what shall satisfy my immortality? And the answer comes, as a whisper in the desert, louder and clearer from the solitude of my heart’s waste places, "I the Lord, the First, and with the Last; I am He."
J. Vaughan, Sermons, 8th series, p. 149.
Isa 41:6-7
I. Encouragement must be lived as well as spoken.
II. Encouragement must begin at the nearest point.
III. Encouragement must not be merely seasonal.
IV. Encouragement must not be withdrawn by frequent failures.
V. Encouragement must be true, based on reasons.
W. M. Statham, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxiv., p. 408.
References: Isa 41:7.—E. P. Thring, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxii., p. 136. Isa 41:9.—Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 138.
Isa 41:10
God can be God and fearless, but we can scarcely be creatures and fearless. Still less is it likely that sinful creatures should be fearless. It is more than the Father looks for under the present mode of our existence. But when the fearful thing is coming down, or when the children see it looming in the distance and are frightened, and they catch the Father’s countenance, and see that He is not frightened, it wonderfully reassures the poor children to see a fearlessness on the Father’s face. Heaven is full of "Fear nots." And if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, it will break out of your midnight, and up from your deepest valley too, that voice of the Father, the All-in-all.
I. Of course the meaning of the word is, in the first place, that God is our All-sufficiency, and not disrelated but related to us. God, the Creator, who has related the universal deficiency to His own universal all-sufficiency, from a blade of grass up and up and up to immortal spirits, and Himself the Father, is Himself nearer to you than any other thing which He has made. Behold that blade of grass. Is it not bathed every moment with what it needs? Does it not touch it? Does not the atmosphere press sweetly round about its edge and ask to be received, and give itself into the myriads of little mouths of the blade of grass that it may lift itself up and be strong? So can we lie in God’s bosom. We are His children. It only needs to be quiet enough to feel the throbbing of the eternal heart against me, and the instreaming of the fountain spirit through all the avenues and channels of my being.
II. Consider the use the children should make of this sufficiency of their Father. See what liberties we take with God’s earth. We get stones wherever we like. They are not our stones. And we get gold wherever we like, and we get iron wherever we like, and we get coal wherever we can. I hope the day will come when, even without thought or intention, we shall, from the new nature of our being, take up God as easily as the blade of grass takes up atmosphere and light. Let us enter our home—enter and be comforted, as all helpless things are, to find their source of supply so near. And let us not leave our nest and then fret that our rest is gone, but abide encircled by the everlasting strength.
J. Pulsford, Penny Pulpit, No. 729.
References: Isa 41:10.—Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times," vol. vii., p. 1; A. Maclaren, Old Testament Outlines, p. 201; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvi., No. 930, vol. xiii., No. 670; Ibid., Morning by Morning, p. 357; A. M. Brown, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xv., p. 353; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. x., p. 351.
Isa 41:13
Courage, its source and necessity.
I. Its source. You can scarcely fail to observe the broad sense of the Divine presence and aid which is expressed by the figures of the promise we have read, "I will hold thy right hand." The grasp of the hand is significant of close and present friendship, of the living nearness of the Deliverer. And that sense of God’s presence, so near that our faith can touch His hand and hear the deep still music of His voice—realised as it may be in Christ, is the source of a courage which no danger can dispel, no suffering exhaust, and no death destroy. The clearest way of illustrating this will be to take the higher forms of courage among men, and observe what states of soul are most conducive to it. (1) Beginning with the courage of active resistance, we find its great element in the fixed survey of the means of conquest. Fear rises from the contemplation of difficulties, courage from the perception of the thing to be done. Rise now to spiritual courage, and the same principle holds true. It is by the aid of God that we conquer in spiritual battle; our reliance is on the constant influence of His strengthening grace. And while our gaze is fixed on that, fear vanishes. (2) Passing on to the courage needful for passive endurance, we find that its great feature is self-surrender to the highest law of life. The Christian endures, because the law of his being has become resignation to the will of God.
II. Notice the necessity for this courage. It is essential to Christian life for three reasons. (1) It requires courage to manifest the Christian character before men. (2) It requires courage to maintain steadfast obedience to the will of God. (3) It demands courage to hold fast to our highest aspirations.
E. L. Hull, Sermons, 3rd series, p. 157.
References: Isa 41:14.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iii., Nos. 156, 157; Ibid., Morning by Morning, p. 16. Isa 41:17, Isa 41:18.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. x., p. 353. Isa 41:22.—W. M. Punshon, Old Testament Outlines, p. 205.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain Cyrus God's Agent
Cyrus God's Agent
1-7. Jehovah and the gods of the heathen compared as in a court of judgment. Jehovah has raised up Cyrus and given him victory, in order to carry out His good purposes, while the heathen gods are powerless to affect the course of events.
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8-20. A digression: the events which bring terror to the nations bring deliverance to Israel.
21-29. Comparison of Jehovah with the gods of the heathen continued.
1. The heathen nations lately conquered by Cyrus are called to plead their case as in a law-court.
2-4. The evidence produced on Jehovah's side. It is He who has called Cyrus to his career of conquest in fulfilment of His own purpose.
2. Who raised up, etc.] RV 'Who hath raised up one from the east, whom he calleth in righteousness to his foot,' i.e. to accompany Him. The one thus raised up is Cyrus: cp. Isa_44:28; Isa_46:11. He is called in righteousness by Jehovah, i.e. in fidelity to His covenant promises, which are to be realised through Cyrus. See the same thought, Isa_42:6; Isa_45:13.
5-7. The heathen, alarmed by Cyrus's suecesses, make alliances for mutual support, and attempt to avert disaster by manufacturing or repairing idols.
7. Saying, etc.] RV 'saying of the soldering, It is good.'
8-10. Israel, on the other hand, descended from the patriarchs, God's chosen people, need have no fear.
8. Servant] with a special mission, as will hereafter appear. But here the emphasis is on what God does for Israel, noton what Israel does for God. Friend] cp. 2Ch_20:7; Jam_2:23. 'The friend of God' is still the usual title of Abraham in the East.
9. Chief men] RV 'corners.'
10. My righteousness] i.e. faithfulness to My purpose as declared in My promises (see Isa_41:2).
11-14. It is impossible that the servant thus chosen and honoured can be cast off (oppressed for ever).
15-16. With Jehovah's aid Israel shall become terrible to its foes.
17-20. Jehovah will make easy their return through the desert, exchanging their misery and need for plenty and happiness, that man may acknowledge Him.
18. High places] RV 'bare heights.'
19. Shittah] RV 'acacia.'
21. The v. reverts to the scene of the court of judgment (Isa_41:1).
22, 23. A challenge to heathen gods to foretell the future, to do something or other to show that they exist.
24. The case is summed up against them.
25. Jehovah, on the other hand, has shown His power by raising up Cyrus. The north.. the rising of the sun] referring to the MedoPersian empire. Princes] i.e. of Babylon, who hold Israel in bondage.
26, 27. While the heathen oracles have been dumb, Jehovah has promised restoration to Zion.
26. He is righteous] i.e. has been proved right by the fulfilment of His prophecy.
27. RV 'I first will say unto Zion,' etc. Behold them] the returning exiles.
28, 29. No reply is possible on the part of the heathen; their gods are nought.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain Jehovah’s Challenge
CHAPTER 41
Jehovah’s Challenge
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1. The address to the islands and the peoples (Isa 41:1) 2. Jehovah’s question, Cyrus and his ways predicted (Isa 41:2-4) 3. Nations troubled on account of Cyrus (Isa 41:5-7) 4. Israel as Jehovah’s servant (Isa 41:8) 5. The message of comfort and assurance of restoration (Isa 41:9-20) 6. Jehovah’s second challenge: He alone can declare things to come (Isa 41:21-24) 7. The future things revealed (Isa 41:25-29) Cyrus is here mentioned for the first time, though not yet by name. He is in view in Isa 41:2-3 and Isa 41:25. His work as a mighty conqueror is outlined and the consternation of the surrounding nations on account of it is described. Isa 41:18-20 go beyond the times of Cyrus. They can only be fulfilled when He who is greater than Cyrus will appear.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain The Glory of the Lord and the Vanity of…
The Glory of the Lord and the Vanity of the Heathen
v. 1. Keep silence before Me, O islands, since the Lord is about to argue His case before the leaders of the Gentile world, and let the people, all those on the side of the enemies, renew their strength, gather all the resources at their command, in order, if that be possible, to gain the advantage in the argument; let them come near, stepping before the tribunal of the great Judge. Then let them speak, arguing their case; let us, the Lord and His enemies, come near together to judgment, to have their matter adjudicated in court. It is a majestic challenge on the part of the great God.
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v. 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? literally, "Who stirs, raises up from the East him (whom) justice calls to her footprints, gives nations before him, and lets him step upon kings?" It is God who calls a great deliverer from the Eastern empire, a man who is ready to follow in the footsteps of the covenant faithfulness, and whom the Lord causes to subdue nations and kings. He gave them as the dust to his sword and as driven stubble to his bow, or, in the form of a question, "Who makes them as dust by His sword, as wind-driven stubble through His bow?" all the enemies of the Lord being destroyed before Him.
v. 3. He pursued them and passed safely, without hindrance; even by the way that he had not gone with his feet, that is, the conqueror whom the Lord calls will carry on his pursuit of the Lord’s enemies with such energy as to disregard all obstructions, no matter of what kind they may be.
v. 4. Who hath wrought and done it, undertaking and also finishing the work which He had set before Him, calling the generations from the beginning? I, the Lord, the First and with the last: I am He. Jehovah, who called all the generations of man into being and will do so until the end of time, raises up also this deliverer as the champion of His cause. We now have a description of the impression which the argument of Jehovah made upon the enemies.
v. 5. The isles, the leaders among the heathen, saw it and feared, filled with terror before the deliverer appointed by the Lord; the ends of the earth, all the inhabitants of the world, were afraid, drew near, and came, huddling together for mutual defense, with a show of opposition.
v. 6. They helped every one his neighbor, they attempt to assist one another in the work which they now undertake; and every one said to his brother, Be of good courage, trying to give him moral support, for they intend to supply gods for their defense against Jehovah.
v. 7. So the carpenter, the craftsman in wood and metal, encouraged the goldsmith, the man who cast the idols, and he that smootheth with the hammer him that smote the anvil, saying, It is ready for the soldering, saying of the soldered mass, It is good; and he fastened it with nails that it should not be moved. Although the picture, as put together, seems solid enough, yet the workmen, for safety’s sake, put in a few nails to hold it upright, a fine bit of irony characterizing the vanity of idolatry and the helplessness of the idol worshipers, who trust in the work of man’s hands.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Listen before me in silence
Listen before me in silence
Here "me" refers to God.
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you coastlands
This refers to the people who live on the islands and in the lands bordering or beyond the Mediterranean Sea. (See: Metonymy and Apostrophe)
renew their strength
See how you translated this phrase in Isaiah 40:31.
let them come near and speak; let us come near together to argue a dispute
These two phrases share similar meanings. The second explains the reason for the first. AT: "then let them come near so they may speak and reason with me" (See: Parallelism)
Who has stirred up one from the east, calling him in righteousness to his service?
Yahweh uses this question to emphasize that he is the one who caused this ruler from the east to be victorious. AT: "I am the one who called this powerful ruler from the east and put him in my good service." (See: Rhetorical Question)
He hands nations over to him
"I give the nations over to him" or "The one who does these things hands nations over to him"
He turns them to dust with his sword, like windblown stubble with his bow
Turning them to dust and stubble is a metaphor or exaggeration for completely destroying everything the people of these nations have made. The armies of one from the east will conquer these nations and scatter the people easily. (See: Metaphor and Simile and Hyperbole and Generalization)
translationWords
nation
call
hand
king
sword
bow and arrow
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 41:1-7 The Lord here invited the nations to a…
41:1-7 The Lord here invited the nations to a trial where he would prove that he alone is God. They were defenseless as he declared that a king from the east (41:2) would crush Babylon, opening the way for Israel to return.
41:1 The nations coming together for a trial have to listen in silence to the presentation of God’s arguments. • Bring your strongest arguments: Literally let them find new strength, a play on 40:31. • God invited the nations to come . . . and speak, challenging them to refute his case.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.