XLV. (1) TO HIS ANOINTED... — The name is none other than the Messiah, the Christ, with which we are familiar, here and here only applied to a heathen king. It has to be remembered that the words had not yet received the special application given to it in Daniel 9:26, and had been used of the theocr... [ Continue Reading ]
MAKE THE CROOKED PLACES STRAIGHT. — Better, _make the dwelling-places smooth_ — _i.e.,_ remove all obstacles (comp. 40:4, 42:16).... [ Continue Reading ]
THE TREASURES OF DARKNESS... — The heaped-up wealth of “gold-abounding” Babylon. The capture of Sardis, with all the riches of Crœsus, must have been almost as fruitful in plunder. (Herod. i. 84). The conqueror was to see in his victories the token of the protection of Jehovah, and so accept his voc... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR JACOB MY SERVANT... — The words “servant” and “elect” show that the prophet speaks of the ideal Israel, the true _Ecclesia,_ rather than of the nation as such outwardly, though this also, as including the other, shared in the outward blessings of the election. Essentially, the words declare that... [ Continue Reading ]
THERE IS NO GOD BESIDE ME. — Commonly, the formula is used in antithesis to polytheism. Possibly we may think of it here as in contrast with the dualism of Persia, or, if that be assigned to a later date, of Babylonia. I GIRDED THEE. — The opposite of the “loosing,” or “ungirding,” of Isaiah 45:1,... [ Continue Reading ]
I MAKE PEACE, AND CREATE EVIL... — The words have no bearing on the insoluble problem of what we call the origin of evil. “Evil,” as opposed to “peace” or prosperity, is suffering, but not sin; normally, in the Divine counsels, at once the consequence and corrective of moral evil (comp. Isaiah 47:11... [ Continue Reading ]
LET THE SKIES POUR DOWN RIGHTEOUSNESS... — The vision is that of a new heaven and a new earth, in which righteousness is at once as the rain that falls from the one, and as the product of the other.... [ Continue Reading ]
WOE UNTO HIM THAT STRIVETH... — The sequence of thought is not at first apparent. Were those who strove, the heathen nations who resisted Cyrus, or Israelites who desired some other deliverer, say a prince of the house of David? The latter seems more probable. In either case men were guilty of the f... [ Continue Reading ]
WOE UNTO HIM... — The implied argument is that men accept the accident of birth without questioning father or mother as to that which lay beyond the control of either. Should they not _a fortiori_ accept what God orders for nations and individual men?... [ Continue Reading ]
ASK ME OF THINGS TO COME... — As it stands, the verse calls men to consult the Holy One of Israel, and not the oracles of the heathen, about the future, to leave His works to His own control, and this falls in with Isaiah 44:25. A slight alteration of the text gives a meaning much more coherent with... [ Continue Reading ]
I HAVE MADE... — The Creator is also the Ruler, supreme in history as in nature.... [ Continue Reading ]
I HAVE RAISED HIM UP IN RIGHTEOUSNESS... — This was the answer to the murmurers. It would be seen by the results, the city rebuilt, the exiles restored to their home, that the conquests of Cyrus had been ordered by the loving righteousness of Jehovah; and he would do this, not through the greed and... [ Continue Reading ]
THUS SAITH THE LORD... — A new section opens. In Isaiah 43:3, Egypt, Ethiopia, Seba, had been given to Cyrus, as a reward, or ransom, for the deliverance of Israel. Here the prophet goes a step farther, and contemplates them as coming, in the spirit of a voluntary surrender, as proselytes to the fai... [ Continue Reading ]
VERILY THOU ART A GOD THAT HIDEST THYSELF... — The words have been variously taken: (1) as continuing the wondering homage of the heathen; (2) as spoken by the prophet as he surveys the unsearchable ways of God. (Comp. Romans 11:33.) Through the long years of exile He had seemed to hide Himself, to... [ Continue Reading ]
WORLD WITHOUT END. — Literally, _for the ages,_ or _œons on œons_ in Psalms 77:5.... [ Continue Reading ]
HE HATH ESTABLISHED IT... — _i.e.,_ prepared it (see Deuteronomy 32:6; Genesis 42:16) for human habitation. It was not a _tohu_ or chaos (Genesis 1:2; Isaiah 24:10), but the scene of human action. We note the grandeur of the prophet’s thoughts of creation.... [ Continue Reading ]
I HAVE NOT SPOKEN IN SECRET. — The words are in marked contrast to the thought expressed in Isaiah 45:15. God had been all along revealing Himself, not like the oracles of the heathen, in the gloom of caves and darkened shrines (Isaiah 8:19; Isaiah 65:4; Isaiah 29:4), but in the broad daylight of hi... [ Continue Reading ]
YE THAT ARE ESCAPED OF THE NATIONS. — Primarily, the words point to the survivors of the conquests of Cyrus, who are contemplated as acknowledging the God of Israel. Ultimately the words find their fulfilment in the conversion of the heathen to the true anointed of Jehovah, of whom Cyrus was a type.... [ Continue Reading ]
TELL YE, AND BRING THEM NEAR. — Yet another challenge to the idols and their worshippers. A JUST GOD AND A SAVIOUR. — Stress is laid on the union of the two attributes which in human actions are often thought incompatible. (Comp. Psalms 85:10.) In virtue of that union the invitation of Isaiah 45:22... [ Continue Reading ]
I HAVE SWORN BY MYSELF. — The highest conceivable form of asseveration (Genesis 22:16; Jeremiah 22:5; Hebrews 6:13). UNTO ME EVERY KNEE SHALL BOW. — The faith of Israel becomes the religion of mankind, though, from the prophet’s standpoint, Israel does not lose its distinctive nationality. We note... [ Continue Reading ]
SURELY, SHALL ONE SAY. — The prophet hears that confession as uttered in the far-off time.... [ Continue Reading ]
IN THE LORD. — We note the germ of the New Testament thought of the mystic union of man with God, in the phrases “in the Lord,” “in the Holy Spirit,” “in Christ,” which embody that thought. Jehovah is the sphere, or region, in which men “live and move and have their being.” The seed of Israel, as in... [ Continue Reading ]