13 I bring near my righteousness; It shall not be far off, and my salvation shall not tarry: and I will place salvation in Zion for Israel my glory. (T) CHAP. XLVII. COME down, and sit in the dust; O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground: there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate. 2 Take the millstones, and grind meal: uncover thy locks, make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers. 3 Thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen: I will take vengeance, and I will not meet thee as a man. 4 As for our redeemer, the LORD of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel. 5 Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, O daughter of the Chal CHAP. XLVI. [down to the dust. deans: for thou shalt no more be called, The lady of kingdoms. 6 I was wroth with my people, I have polluted mine inheritance, and given them into thine hand: thou didst shew them no mercy; upon the ancient hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke. 7 And thou saidst, I shall be a lady for ever so that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart, neither didst remember the latter end of it. 8 Therefore hear now this, thou that art given to pleasures, that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children: 9 But these two things shall come to thee in a moment in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood: they shall come upon thee in their perfection for the multitude of thy sorceries, and for the great abundance of thine enchantments. 10 For thou hast trusted in thy EXPOSITION. (T) The idols of Babylon could neither save their worshippers,nor themselves.-The prophet here represents the gods of Babylon, as so far from being able to save others, that they should themselves be carried into captivity by common beasts of burden, theniselves "a burden to the weary beast." With this description he then contrasts the tender care of the God of Israel toward his people, whom, as a tender father, he had carried in his arms from their earliest days; delivering them from time to time from all their enemies, and from all their troubles. (See Numb. x. 12.) The prophet then adverts to his favourite topic, and forcibly exposes the folly of idolatry, and the utter uselessness of those idols, who, instead of protecting their devo- | tees, on every victory obtained over them, were usually carried captive with them. (See Jer. xlviii. 7. Dan. xi. 8.) He then returns, ver. 9, to a contemplation of the perfections of the true God, particularly that prescience which foretold events so distant as the deliverance of Israel from Babylon, by Cyrus, and an eternal salvation by Messiah. It is remarkable that Cyrus, compared in ver. 11, to an Eagle, (so the word translated ravenous bird should be rendered) is said by Xenophon to have had a golden eagle for his ensign, using, without knowing it, the identical word of the Prophet. So exact is the correspondence between the Prophet and the historian; between the prediction and the event. (See Bp. Lowth.) NOTES. CHAP. XLVII. Ver. 1. Sit in the dust.-See Job i. 20.-ii. 8, 13. Ver. 2. Take the millstones-Lowth, "The mill.” In the East, it was (and still is) the custom to employ female slaves to grind the corn, with hand mills. Matt. xxiv. 41. See Harmer's Obs. vol. i. p. 153. -Pass over-Lowth, "Wade through." Ver. 3. I will not meet thee as a man-Lowth, "I will suffer no man to intercede." Ver. 6. I was wroth. From this verse we may learn, that when God is angry with any, we ought 1 12 Stand now with thine enchantments, and with the multitude of thy sorceries, wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth; if so be thou shalt be able to profit, if so be thou mayest prevail. 13 Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee. 14 Behold, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of CHAP. XLVII. [ruin predicted. the flame; there shall not be a coal to warm at, nor fire to sit before it. 15 Thus shall they be unto thee with whom thou hast laboured, even thy merchants from thy youth: they shall wander every one to his quarter: none shall save thee. (U) CHAP. XLVIII. HEAR ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah; which swear by the name of the LORD, and make mention of the God of Israel; but not in truth, nor in righteousness. 2 For they call themselves of the holy city, and stay themselves upon the God of Israel; The LORD of hosts is his name. 3 I have declared the former things from the beginning; and they went forth out of my mouth, and I shewed them; I did them suddenly, and they came to pass. 4 Because I knew that thou art ob EXPOSITION. (U) God's judgments against Babylon.The destruction of Babylon is denounced by a beautiful detail of particulars, in which her state of high prosperity is contrasted with her approaching adverse and miserable condition. She is represented as a tender and delicate virgin, reduced to the work and abject condition of a slave, and bereaved of every comfort and enjoyment. This reverse of circumstances is stated to be on account of her cruelty (particularly to God's people,) her pride, voluptuousness, Sorceries, and incantations. The folly of these superstitious practices, the Prophet elegantly exposes in the latter part of the chapter, in terms strikingly applicable to our modern prognosticators and almanack makers-" the astrologers, the star-gazers, the monthly prognosticators:"-Let them "stand up and save thee!" As the deliverance of the Jews was intimately connected with the fall of Babylon, a chorus of that nation breaks in (ver. 4) in the very middle of the Prophet's denunciations, to praise God, in a distich (in the original) of a different measure and construction, which adds to its fine effect, considered in the light of poetry. "As for our Redeemer, the Lord of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel." NOTES. Ver. 10. It hath perverted thee-Marg. " Caused thee to turn away." Ver. 11. Thou shalt not know from whence it riseth-Heb. "The morning (or dawn) thereof." Not be able to put it off Heb. To expiate it," that is, by any idolatrous sacritices.Which thou shalt not know-Lowth," Of which thou shalt have no apprehension." Ver. 12. Stand now with, &c. - Lowth, "Persist now in," &c. Ver. 13. The astrologers - Heb. "The observers of the heavens --Monthly prognosticators-Lowth, **They that prognosticate at every new moon." Ver. 14. Not a coal- that is, they shall all be quickly and entirely destroyed, like a blaze of stubble, not a coal; that is, no remains of them shall be left. Ver. 15. Even thy merchants-that is, those (mean ing the astrologers, &c.) with whom thou hast trafficked (or done business) from thy youth. CHAP. XLVIII. Ver. 1. And are come forth out of, &c.-Lowth, "Ye that flow from," &c. See Deut. xxxiii. 28; Psalm 1xviii. 26. Ver. 4. Obstinate-Heb. Hard." Israel reproved for not] ISAIAH. [attending to God's warnings. stinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow brass; 51 have even from the beginning declared it to thee: before it came to pass I shewed it thee: lest thou shouldest say, Mine idol hath done them, and my graven image, and my molten image, hath commanded them. 6 Thou hast heard, see all this; and will not ye declare it? I have shewed thee new things from this time, even hidden things, and thou didst not know them. 7 They are created now, and not from the beginning; even before the day when thou heardest them not; lest thou shouldest say, Behold, I knew them. 8 Yea, thou heardest not; yea, thou knewest not; yea, from that time that thine ear was not opened: for I knew that thou wouldest deal very treacherously, and wast called a transgressor from the womb. 9 For my name's sake will I defer mine anger, and for my praise will I refrain for thee, that I cut thee not off. 10 Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction. 11 For mine own sake, even for mine own sake, will I do it: for how should my name be polluted? and I will not give my glory unto another. 12 Hearken unto me, O Jacob and Israel, my called; I am he; I am the first, I also am the last. 13 Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand hath spanned the heavens: when I call unto them, they stand up together. 14 All ye, assemble yourselves, and hear; which among them hath declared these things! The LORD hath loved him: he will do his pleasure on Babylon, and his arm shall be on the Chaldeans. 15 I, even I, have spoken: yea, I have called him: I have brought him, and he shall make his way prosperous. 16 Come ye near unto me, hear ye this: I have not spoken in secret from the beginning: from the time that it was, there am I: and now the Lord God, and his spirit, hath sent me. 17 Thus saith the LORD, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; I am the LORD thy God which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go. 18 O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea: 19 Thy seed also had been as the sand, and the offspring of thy bowels like the gravel thereof; his name should not have been cut off nor destroyed from before me. 20 Go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans, with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth; say ye, The LORD hath redeemed his servant Jacob. 21 And they thirsted not when he led them through the deserts: he caused the waters to flow out of the NOTES-Chap. XLVIII. Con. Ver. 6. Thou hast heard, &c.--that is, thou hast heard this aforetime; thou seest it accomplished, and will not ye declare it? or, acknowledge it? See Lowth. Ver. 8. Thine ear was not opened. - See 1 Sam. ix. 15; 2 Sam. vii. 27. Ver. 10. Not with-1owth, "Not as " silver; i. e. not with so great a heat as silver requires.I have chosen thee-to choose, is to prefer one person before another: the great refiner tempers the heat to the metal. Some versions read with the Syriac and Chaldee, "I have tried;" so Lowth and Boothroyd. Ver. 13. My right hand hath spanned Marg. "The palm of my right hand hath spread out the heavens."They stand up together-that is, ready to attend the Almighty's call. See chap, xlv. 12. Ver. 14. Which among them.-Twenty-one MSS. and two Editions read, among you.”—The Lord hath loved him-namely, Cyrus. See chap. xliv. 28. and xlv. 1, 2. Lowth, "He whom the Lord hath loved." Ver. 16. The Lord God and his Spirit hath sent me.--Some consider these as the words of the prephet; so Boothroyd. But Dr. Pye Smith (Messiah, 3. 374.) contends, from a comparison of the preceding verses, 12-15, with chap. xlv. latter part, that they are the words of the Messiah, and Bp. Lowth quotes Origen, as thus applying them. So also Dr. Dwight, Ver. 19. Like the gravel thereof-Lowth, “Like that of the bowels thereof," namely, the issue of the fishes, here called the bowels of the sea: so the most learned Rabbins. See Note on Gen. i, 21. rock for them: he clave the rock also, and the waters gushed out. [to his work. 4 Then I said, I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for 22 There is no peace, saith the nought, and in vain: yet surely my LORD, unto the wicked. (X) CHAP. XLIX, LISTEN, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far; The LORD hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name. 2 And he hath made my mouth like a sharp sword; ia the shadow of his hand hath he hid me, and made me a polished shaft; in his quiver hath he hid me; 3 And said unto me, Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified. CHAP. XLVIII. judgment is with the LORD, and my work with my God. 5 And now, saith the LORD that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the LORD, and my God shall be my strength. 6 And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth. 7 Thus saith the LORD, the Re EXPOSITION. (X) Israel reproved for not attending to God's warning by his Prophets.-The Jews are reproved in this chapter for their obstinate attachment to idolatry, notwithstanding their experience of the divine providence over them, and of the divine prescience, which revealed by the Prophets the most remarkable events that concerned them. That they should have no pretext for ascribing the least of their success to their idols, they are challenged below, (ver. 14) to give the like proof of their knowledge of futurity. Yet God, after bringing them to the furnace for their perverseness, (in which he treats them with great tenderness) repeats his gracious promises of deliverance and consolation from the benefits of which, however, the guilty and impenitent are, in the last verse, excluded. It is hardly necessary to observe, that many passages in this chapter, and indeed the general strain of these prophecies, have a plain aspect to some farther restoration of the church in the latter times, when the fall of the mystical or spiritual Babylon, (Rev. xviii. 21,) of which the other was a type, shall introduce, by some great revolutions, the most glorious era of the gospel. No person of sensibility can read this chapter without admiring that tender, beautiful and passionate exclamation put into the mouth of our heavenly Father, who afflicts his children only if need be, and who in all their afflictions is (himself) afflicted. "O that thou hadst observed my commandments!" In the close of this chapter the protection afforded to the Jews in their return from Babylon, is compared to God's miraculous care over Israel in their passage through the wilderness: and it was only by faith in this protectiou, that Ezra and his company adventured to return without a guard: for considering the strength of their enemies, and the treasures they carried with them, their safe arrival seems little short of miraculous. (See Ezra viii. 21, 22.) NOTES. CHAP. XLIX. Ver. 1. The Lord hath called me. This refers not to Isaiah, but to Messiah himself, as appears by the next verse. Ver. 2. A skarp sword. — ·Compare Heb. iv. 12 ; Rev. i. 16. — In the shadow of his hand. - See eh. li. 16, compared with Exod. xxxiii. 22. "as a Ver. 3. 0Israel.-This" cannot (says Bp. Lowth) be Isaiah;" but it may apply to Messiah, who, in correspondence with the import of the name, prince had power with God, and prevailed." Comp. Gen. xxxii. 28; and Hos. xi. 3, 4, with Heb. v. 7. Ver. 4. My work-Marg." My reward;" Lowth, "The reward of my work." Ver. 5. Though Israel be not gathered.-Instead of the negative in this verse, the Keri (which is confirmed by five MSS, two ancient) reads to him; so most of the ancient versions. Lowth therefore reads, ".... to bring back Jacob to him, and that to him Israel may be gathered: therefore shall I be glorions," &c. The latter part of this verse should be read in a parenthesis. T Ver. 6. It is a light thing—that is, comparatively, inasmuch as Israel is but a small nation, compared with the whole world. The preserved - Lowth, "The branches of Israel." So Boothroyd. Ver. 7. To him whom man despiseth "To him whose person is despised." Se And arise-Lowth, "Rise up him. See chap. lii. 15. And he shal -Lowth, "For he hath chosen thee." in Israel reproved for not] ISAIAH. [attending to stinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow brass; 51 have even from the beginning declared it to thee: before it came to pass I shewed it thee: lest thou shouldest say, Mine idol hath done them, and my graven image, and my molten image, hath commanded them. 6 Thou hast heard, see all this; and will not ye declare it? I have shewed thee new things from this time, ever hidden things, and thou didst not kr them. 7 They are created now, from the beginning; even b day when thou heardest the thou shouldest say, Beb them. 8 Yea, thou heard knewest not; yea, places, y . in shall Lueir pastures hand hath spanne ther. 14 All y byl C Aentiles. her sucking ot have com er womb? Yea, will I not forget ave graven thee upon hands; thy walls are ore me. ldren shall make haste: rs, and they that made thee all go forth of thee. ft up thine eyes round about, nold: all these gather themselves ,ether, and come to thee. As I live, saith the LORD, thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all, as with an ornament, and bind them on thee, as a bride doeth. 19 For thy waste and thy desolate places, and the land of thy destruction, we shall not hunger nor thirst; shall even now be too narrow by reason thine ear was not that thou would ously, and w from the w 9 For mine a refrai off. n' had them, even by the springs of we shall he guide them. 20 The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, cains a way, and my highways shall be is too strait for me: give place to me 77 And I will make all my moun- shall say again in thine ears, The place 12 Behold, these shall come from exalted. that I may dwell. far: and, lo, these from the north and heart, Who hath begotten me these, from the west; of Sinim. and these from the land 21 Then shalt thou say in thine seeing I have lost my children, and am desolate, a captive, and removing to 13 Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, and fro? and who hath brought up O earth: and break forth into singing, these? Behold, I was left alone: these, O mountains: for the LORD hath comforted his people, and will have mercy his afflicted. upon where had they been? 22 Thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the 14 But Zion said, the LORD hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath for- people: and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall gotten me. NOTES-Chap. XLIX. Con. Ver. 8. For a covenant of the people- that is, the only Mediator between God and man. See 1 Tim. ii. 5. Ver. 9. Go forth.-Compare ch. xlii. 7.-In all high places. The best pastures, in the East, are in fertile mountains. See Orient. Lit. No. 937. Ver. 15. Not have - Heb. "From having" compassion. Ver. 16. I have graven thee on the palms of my hands. This alludes to the eastern custom of tracing out on their hands the sketches of certain places, (with the points of needles) and then rubbing them with the powder of henna, or cypress, and thereby making them perpetual. Mr. Maundrell says, the modern pilgrims to Jerusalem have a similar way of marking their arms. See Orient. Cust. No. 265. Thy walls are continually before me that is, delineated on my hands, as just explained. Ver. 17. Thy children shall make haste- that is, to return home. They that made thee wastethat is, thine enemies, shall go forth, or hasten to retreat. But Bp. Lowth, from a different pointing of the Hebrew, reads, "They that destroy thee, shall soon become thy builders, and they that laid thee waste shall become thine offspring." So Boothroyd. Ver. 18. As a bride doeth-what? The LXX supplies "her jewels." So Lowth. Ver. 21. Where had they been?-Lowth, “ These then, where were they?" Ver. 22. In their arms-Heb. "Bosom." |