Isaiah 44:6-23

Isaiah 44:6; Isaiah 44:21. The Incomparableness of Yahweh, Who Redeems Israel. Yahweh of (the heavenly) Hosts (Genesis 2:1 *, 1 Samuel 1:3 *) asserts His uniqueness, challenging any who claim to have foretold the future aright to make their pretensions good. His people need not fear: long ago, as they can testify, He foretold what is now coming to pass. Let them remember the incomparableness of their Master. He blots out their sins as the sun disperses the morning clouds. The prophet adds a short lyric, calling upon all the universe to praise Yahweh, who so gloriously redeems His people.

Isaiah 44:7. Read, Who is like me? Let him stand forth (LXX), and cry out, and declare and set it (his case) forth before me. Who foretold long ago what is now coming to pass? Let them declare to us (cf. VSS) what is yet to come!

Isaiah 44:8 b. Read, Is there a God or a Rock beside me?

Isaiah 44:21. Read, Thou wilt not renounce me (cf. mg.).

Isaiah 44:9. The Folly of Idol-Worship. This late insertion breaks the connexion between Isaiah 44:8 and Isaiah 44:21, and differs from its context in style and spirit. Makers of images are as nothing; their beloved idols (delectable things) bring them no gain. The devotees are so blind that they must inevitably be brought to shame. He who fashions a god has merely cast a useless image. All its devotees and magicians shall be put to shame (Isaiah 44:11). The metal-worker, fashioning his image over the hot fire, grows faint. The maker of a wooden idol marks out his block with line and pencil and carves it into human shape for a domestic god. He chooses a tree, which God has planted and nourished by His rain. With part of it he warms himself and cooks his food; the rest he makes into a god before whom he prostrates himself, seeking help from it! What absurdity! yet they are too blind to see it. Such men, getting satisfaction from (not feedeth on as RV) wood that burns to ashes, are too perverted to save themselves by reflecting that their support is a delusion.

Isaiah 44:9. their witnesses: cf. Isaiah 43:9. that they may be: the inevitable result of conduct is often represented as its deliberate aim.

Isaiah 44:10. An assertion rather than a question: He who has fashioned a god, has but molten.

Isaiah 44:11. Obscure: read perhaps, All its devotees (cf. mg.) shall be ashamed, and its magicians confounded: let them, etc.

Isaiah 44:12. an axe: omit as a gloss; Heb. is impossible.

Isaiah 44:14. Heb. corrupt; no satisfactory emendation is proposed. LXX has merely, He cutteth wood out of the forest which the Lord planted and the rain made it grow.

Isaiah 44:15. Connect the first clause with Isaiah 44:14: doth nourish it for kindling. taketh thereof: read kindles fire therefrom (LXX).

Isaiah 44:16. with part thereof: read, as in Isaiah 44:19, upon the coals thereof (LXX Syr.) Read (cf. LXX), he roasteth flesh, he eateth roast.

Isaiah 44:18. Read, their eyes are smeared over (cf. mg.).