Isaiah 48:1

Hear ye this, O house of Jacob,.... Who were of the house and family of Jacob, his descendants and posterity; and who were of the house of the God of Jacob, had a name and a place there, at least in

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

ISAIAH CHAPTER 48 God reproveth their hypocrisy and obstinacy by his prophecies, . He spareth them for his name’ s sake, and that they may learn to know him aright, . God’ s powerful salvation a motive to obedience, . God lamenteth their backwardness, . Deliverance out of Babylon, ,21. No peace to the wicked, . Hear ye this, what I am now going to say against thee, that thou mayst be assured that that great deliverance which I have determined and declared to give time is not for thy own sake, but for my name’ s sake. Which are called by the name of Israel; which are Israelites in name, but not in truth, as it follows. Out of the waters of Judah; from the lineage of your progenitor, Judah, as waters flow from a fountain, and as the Israelites are said to be of the fountain of Israel, . Compare also , &c. Which swear; which profess the true religion; one act of religion being put for all. Make mention of the God of Israel; either in oaths or otherwise; that own him and seek to glory in him as their God, and call themselves by his name. But not in truth, nor in righteousness; which are the two chief ingredients of a lawful oath, . They are guilty of falsehood and injustice, both in oaths, and in their whole conversation.

Isaiah 48:1 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.Ver. 1. Hear ye this, O house of Jacob.] Ye stiffnecked of Israel, and "uncircumcised in heart and ears, who do always resist the Holy Ghost," to you be it spoken; for to the "Israelites indeed" enough hath been said of this subject already. Which are called by the name of Israel] Sed nomen inane crimen immane. Ye are "called Jews, and make your boast of God," having a form of knowledge, and of godliness, and that is all; the voice of Jacob, but the hands of Esau. Let such fear Jacob’ s fear, "My father perhaps will feel me, and I shall seem to him as a deceiver; and I shall bring a curse upon me, and not a blessing." It is sure enough. And are come forth out of the waters of Judah,] i.e., Out of the bowels, as waters out of a spring. Judah was the tribe royal: hence they so gloried, and remained "ruling with God, and faithful with the saints," when other tribes revolted. Which swear by the name of the Lord.] And not of Baal. And make mention of the God of Israel.] Who was near in their mouths, but far from their reins. Religionem simulabant, cum in cute essent nequissimi. Arrant hypocrites. But not in truth, nor in righteousness,] i.e., Without faith and sound conversion. Picti estis Israelitae, estis hypocritae. Pro ξξι videtur hic legendum ξξςι

XLVIII. (1) Are come forth out of the waters of Judah.—The words limit the wider terms of Jacob and Israel to the Judæan exiles. For the phrase, comp. “ye that are of the fountains of Israel” (Psalms 68:26). The ideal attributes of Israel, “swearing by the name of Jehovah . . .” are pressed in contrast with their actual state of hypocrisy and unrighteousness.

CHAPTER XLVIII The Jews reproved for their obstinate attachment to idols, notwithstanding their experience of the Divine providence over them; and of the Divine prescience that revealed by the prophets the most remarkable events which concerned them, that they should not have the least pretext for ascribing any portion of their success to their idols, 1-8. The Almighty, after bringing them to the furnace for their perverseness, asserts his glorious sovereignty, and repeats his gracious promises of deliverance and consolation, 9-11. Prophecy concerning that individual (Cyrus) who shall be an instrument in the hand of God of executing his will on Babylon, and his power on the Chaldeans; and the idols of the people are again challenged to give a like proof of their foreknowledge, 12-16. Tender and passionate exclamation of Jehovah respecting the hardened condition of the Jewish nation, to which the very pathetic exclamation of the Divine Saviour when he wept over Jerusalem may be considered a striking parallel, 17-19. Notwithstanding the repeated provocations of the house of Israel, Jehovah will again be merciful to them. They are commanded to escape from Babylon; and God's gracious favour towards them is beautifully represented by images borrowed from the exodus from Egypt, 20, 21. Certain perdition of the finally impenitent, 22. It will be proper here to remark that many passages in this chapter, and indeed the general strain of these prophecies, have a plain aspect to a restoration of the Church in the latter days upon a scale much greater than the world has yet witnessed, when the very violent fall of Babylon the Great, mentioned in the Revelation, of which the Chaldean capital was an expressive type, shall introduce by a most tremendous political convulsion, (Revelation 16:17-21,) that glorious epoch of the Gospel, which forms so conspicuous a part of the prophecies of the Old Testament, and has been a subject of the prayers of all saints in all ages. NOTES ON CHAP. XLVIII Verse 1. Are come forth out of the waters of Judah - "Ye that flow from the fountain of Judah"] ממי mimmey, "from the waters." Perhaps ממעי mimmeey, "from the bowels," SO many others have conjectured, or מני יהודה meni yehudah, or מיהודה meyhudah, "from Judah." - Secker. But see Michaelis in Praelect, not. 22. And we have עין יעקב eyn yaakob, "the fountain of Jacob," Deuteronomy 33:28, and ממקור ישראל mimmekor yishrael, "from the fountain of Israel," Psalms 68:27. Twenty-seven MSS. of Kennicott's, six of De Rossi's and two of my own, with six editions, have מימי meymey, "from the days;" which makes no good sense.

1–11. These verses present some peculiar features, both of thought and style, which have been felt by scholars representing widely diverging critical tendencies. The severe judgement on the people goes beyond anything else in the prophecy; and, as has been pointed seems to breathe the spirit of Ezekiel rather than of the second Isaiah. Israel is addressed as a nation of hypocrites, of apostates, and of persistent idolaters. Then the argument of the passage as a whole is very remarkable. The “former things” (i.e. the events that have just taken place) were announced long beforehand, lest Israel should be led to ascribe them to some false god (Isaiah 48:3-6 a); but the “new things” (the subject of the present prophecy) have been “hidden” till the last moment, lest the people in their perversity should say they had known of them all along (6 b–8). Duhm and Cheyne agree in assigning these peculiarities to an editor, who has supplied a running commentary on the words of the original author, in the shape of annotations. There is much in the section which would be more intelligible if inserted by a later writer; but the method attributed to the editor is peculiar, and no motive suggests itself for his systematic attempt to correct the tendency of this isolated passage. The difficulties are perhaps exaggerated; the stern attitude towards the nation is not without parallels (see ch. Isaiah 45:9 ff., and on ch. Isaiah 46:8), and the special development of the argument from prophecy cannot be shown to involve a radical inconsistency with the prophet’s general conceptions.

Hear ye this - This is an address to the Jews regarded as in Babylon, and is designed to remind them of their origin, and of their privileges as the descendants of Jacob, and having the name of

1, 2. Hear ye this — Not something new, but already reiterated truths. House of Jacob — “Jacob” is the natural name of Isaac’s second son. Called… Israel — “Israel” is the spiritual name of the same person.