Isaiah 40:15-17

The insignificance of collective humanity before Jehovah. The meditation passes from Nature to History, with the same design of encouraging those who doubted Jehovah's power to save.

a drop of a bucket Rather: a drop from the bucket; which falls away without appreciably lessening the weight.

the small dust &c. which does not turn the scale.

the isles a characteristic word of the second half of Isaiah, occurring 12 times (see Introd. p. xlviii). In the general usage of O.T. it denotes the islands and coastlands of the Mediterranean (comp. the use of the singular by Isaiah in ch. Isaiah 20:6). Etymologically it probably means simply "habitable lands"; and this prophet uses it with great laxity, hardly distinguishing it from "lands" (see esp. ch. Isaiah 42:15).

as a very little thing "a grain of powder," used of the manna, Exodus 16:14.