Isaiah 51:2

I called him from his own country and kindred to follow me to an unknown land, where I promised that I would multiply and bless him, as is particularly explained, Genesis 12:1. Alone, Heb. one; either,

1. Him only of all his kindred; for though he carried some few of them with him, yet I called none but him. So this notes God's singular favour to their progenitors above all the rest of the world. Or,

2. Him when he was alone or solitary, to wit, as to any issue; when he neither had nor was likely to have any child by Sarah. And this word alone seems to belong not only to this word wherewith it is joined, but also unto the two following words, especially if we consider the order of rite words in the Hebrew text, where they lie thus; for one (or alone, or when he was alone, or but one) I called him, and blessed him, and increased him. Increased him into a vast multitude, when his condition was desperate in the eye of reason. And therefore God can as easily raise and deliver his church when they are in the most forlorn condition, and seem to be dead, and buried, and consumed, so that nothing but dry bones remain of them, as it is declared at large, Eze 37.