Isaiah 47:4

As for our Redeemer,.... Or, "saith our Redeemer", as it may be supplied (e): or, "our Redeemer" will do this; inflict this punishment on Babylon, even he who has undertook our cause, and will

As for our redeemer, the LORD of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel. (As for) our Redeemer - or supply, 'Thus saith our Redeemer' (Maurer).

According to this version, the prophet inserteth this passage in the midst of this prophecy against Babylon, as Jacob inserteth a like passage in the midst of his blessings and prophecies concerning his children, . And this may be here interposed, either, 1. As the reason why the judgment here denounced should be certainly inflicted, because he who had undertaken it was the Lord of hosts, and therefore able to effect it, and the Holy One, and the Redeemer of Israel, whom the Babylonians had cruelly oppressed, whose quarrel God would avenge upon them, and whom he had determined and promised to deliver out of their hands. Or, 2. As a pathetical exclamation or acclamation of God’ s people for this wonderful work of breaking the staff of their oppressors, which they here ascribe to God, as he is their God and Redeemer, whom they here make their boast of, and whom they celebrate for this glorious deliverance. But because these words, as for, are not in the Hebrew text, and therefore another word may be as conveniently supplied, this verse may be, and is by some learned interpreters, otherwise rendered, and joined with the foregoing words thus, I will take vengeance, and I will not meet thee as a man, saith our Redeemer, whose name is the Lord of Hosts, the Holy One of Israel. For the word saith or saying is frequently understood, and therefore supplied by translators, as 105:15, and in this very prophecy, as 45:14, and elsewhere.

Isaiah 47:4 [As for] our redeemer, the LORD of hosts [is] his name, the Holy One of Israel.Ver. 4. As for our Redeemer, &c.] This comes in by way of parenthesis, for the comfort of God’ s poor people.

(4) As for our redeemer . . .—The verse comes in somewhat abruptly, but may be viewed (unless we suppose it to have been originally a marginal addition, which has found its way into the text) as Israel’s song of praise, as it looks on the overthrow of Babylon. As such it finds a parallel in the overthrow of the mystical Babylon in Revelation 18:20. Sit thou silent.—Another contrast between the stir of the rejoicing city and the stillness of its later desolation. “The lady” (we might almost say, the empress) “of kingdoms” was reduced to the loneliness of widowhood.

Verse 4. Our Redeemer - "Our Avenger"] Here a chorus breaks in upon the midst of the subject, with a change of construction, as well as sentiment, from the longer to the shorter kind of verse, for one distich only; after which the former subject and style are resumed. See Clarke on Isaiah 45:16.

4. The verse as it stands interrupts the continuity of the poem, especially in the view of those who hold that the speaker is throughout Jehovah. Lowth and others regard it as the response of a chorus of Israelites to the words of God in Isaiah 47:3, while Dillmann and others unhesitatingly pronounce it to be an interpolation. But all reasonable objections are removed if we supply the word “saith” as in two Greek codices. Combining this with the other suggestion of Oort mentioned above, the last distich of the strophe reads thus:— I will take vengeance and will not be entreated,—saith our Redeemer; Jehovah of Hosts is His name,—the Holy One of Israel.

As for our Redeemer - This verse stands absolutely, and is not connected with the preceding or the following.

4. As for our Redeemer, the Lord of hosts is his name — This appears to be antiphonal, that is, the breaking in of a chorus of voices. So Lowth and Gesenius.