Isaiah 43:1

CHAPTER XLIII

Prediction of that blessed period when God should gather the

posterity of Abraham, with tender care, from their several

dispersions in every quarter under heaven, and bring them

safely to their own land, 1-7.

Struck with astonishment at so clear a display of an event so

very remote, the prophet again challenges all the blinded

nations and their idols to produce an instance of such

foreknowledge, 8, 9;

and intimates that the Jews should remains (as at this day,) a

singular monument to witness the truth of the prediction, till

it should at length be fulfilled by the irresistible power of

God, 10-13.

He then returns to the nearer deliverance - that from the

captivity of Babylon, 14, 15;

with which, however, he immediately connects another

deliverance described by allusions to that from Egypt, but

represented as much more wonderful than that; a character which

will not at all apply to the deliverance from Babylon, and must

therefore be understood of the restoration from the mystical

Babylon, 16-18.

On this occasion the prophet, with peculiar elegance, and by a

very strong poetic figure, represents the tender care of God in

comforting and refreshing his people on their way through the

desert, to be so great as to make even the wild beasts haunting

those parched places so sensible of the blessing of those

copious streams then provided by him, as to join their hissing

and howling notes with one consent to praise God, 19-21.

This leads to a beautiful contrast of the ingratitude of the

Jews, and a vindication of God's dealings with regard to them,

22-28.

NOTES ON CHAP. XLIII

Verse Isaiah 43:1. I have called thee by thy name] "קראתי בשמך karathi beshimcha. So all the versions. But it seems from the seventh verse, and from the thing itself, that we should read קראתיך בשמי karathicha bishmi, 'I have called thee by my name;' for this form of speech often occurs - the other never. For Isaiah 45:24, concerning Cyrus, is another matter; but when God calls Jacob Israel, he calls him by the name of God. See Exodus 31:2." - Secker.