Isaiah 25:3-5

Therefore, &c.— These verses contain another gradation of this triumphal song; the meaning whereof is, that the deliverance and salvation which God had procured by his right hand for his people, reduced to extreme straits, and, as it seemed, about to perish should conciliate to him the reverence and honour of powerful and fierce nations; nay, even of those very nations which had opposed the church, and had affected empire over it, and of the city itself, the metropolis of those nations. The fourth and fifth verses should be rendered, for thou hast been, &c. a shadow from the heat: for the blast of the violent is as a winter's storm. Isaiah 25:5. As heat in a dry place, so is the tumult of my enemies. Thou breakest the heat with the shadow of a cloud. The proud singing of the violent shall be brought down. The church praises Jehovah for his protection against the violent persecution of her enemies, which she compares to a wintry storm, and to the burning heat of the sun, tempered by the intervening protection of God, like the shadow of a thick cloud. See chap. Isaiah 4:6. There seems no doubt that the strong people here spoken of means the Romans. See Genesis 8:17, &c. Isaiah 12:1, &c. and the other historians. For the mystical exposition of this prophesy, we refer to Revelation 6:7 : as before.