Isaiah 59:19

Fear the name of the Lord, i.e. either worship the Lord; for the name of God is put for God himself, as hath been often showed, and fear is put for his worship; or make his name renowned. From the west, viz. the western part of the world. His glory, or the glorious God. From the rising of the sun, viz. the eastern parts of the world. The sum is, the whole world, either a synecdoche of the part for the whole, or if you divide the world through the poles, the one half will be east, and the other west, and so compriseth the whole world. It shall fear and worship God, and make his name renowned, laying aside their idolatries; whether you refer it to the deliverance of his people out of Babylon, when they shall hear how God hath executed vengeance on his enemies; or to the redemption by Christ, and his calling of the Gentiles, Zechariah 1:11. When the enemy shall come in like a flood; either against the Babylonians, as some understand it, and so it is probably meant of Cyrus, who shall come like a violent flood, against whom there is no head to be made; him God would stir up against the Babylonians for the deliverance of the Jews. Or against his own people; and so it may have either,

1. A more particular respect to Jerusalem, when Sennacherib came up against it; which suits well with what God saith of him, Isaiah 8:7,8. Or,

2. More general, at what time soever the devil or his instruments shall make violent irruptions upon the church, Revelation 12:15; for powerful enemies invading a country are oft compared to a river. See Poole on "Isaiah 18:2". It is an allusion to the overflowing of Euphrates, which by its violent inundations was wont to do much hurt and damage to the Babylonians. The Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him: and here again, if it be taken in the first sense, viz. against the Babylonians, then the meaning is, God himself shall as it were carry the standard in the midst of Cyrus's army, the Medes and Persians, and that with a great deal of fury, intimated here by the Spirit of the Lord; for spirit is often used among the Hebrews for the passions of the soul, as anger, wrath, fury, &c. Or, as a violent blast or gale of wind, shall help forward the violence of the torrent; and if so, then him, by an enallage of the number, which is frequent, is put for them. But if in either of the other two senses, viz. with particular respect to Sennacherib, then the Spirit of the Lord, as with a blast, only shall puff him away, which was made good, Isaiah 37:7,36,37. Or with more general reference to the violence of enemies against the church; then the meaning is, God shall make known himself to take their part and defend them, Psalms 48:3, and cause the enemies to give back, or put them to flight, as in the margin, Isaiah 17:12, and that without power, but by his Spirit alone, as easy as by a puff of wind, Malachi 4:6. Again, if you take this (as some learned men do) in a spiritual sense, then it notes the suddenness of the gospel's spreading itself by the Spirit in the ministry of the apostles and evangelists, bearing down like a flood all that opposes it, the Lord Jesus Christ being lifted up in it as a banner or ensign: but this sense, though true, seems to be more forced, and as it relates to temporal deliverances, more genuine and natural: however, the prophet being about to speak of the spiritual deliverances and state of the church by Christ, he seems to slide, as it were, into it by such plain allusions and types, being to speak of it more directly in the following Chapter s.