Isaiah 44

44 : 1, 2 YET now hear, O Jacob my servant ; and Israel, whom I have chosen : thus saith the LORD that made thee, and formed thee from the womb, who will help thee : Fear 3 not, O Jacob my servant ; and thou, Jeshurun, whom I have chosen. For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and streams upon the dry ground : I will pour my spirit upon thy 4 seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring : and they shall spring up among the grass, as 5 willows by the watercourses. One shall say, I am the LORD’s ; and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob ; and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the LORD, and sur- name himself by the name of Israel. 6 Thus saith the LORD, the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts : I am the 7 first, and I am the last ; and beside me there is no God. And who, as I, shall call, and shall declare it, and set it in order for me, since I appointed the ancient people ? and the things 8 that are coming, and that shall come to pass, let them declare. Fear ye not, neither be afraid : have I not declared unto thee of old, and shewed it ? and ye are my witnesses. Is 9 there a God beside me ? yea, there is no Rock ; I know not any. They that fashion a graven image are all of them vanity ; and their delectable things shall not profit : and their own wit- 10 nesses see not, nor know ; that they may be ashamed. Who hath fashioned a god, or molten 11 a graven image that is profitable for nothing ? Behold, ah his fellows shall be ashamed ; and the workmen, they are of men : let them all be gathered together, let them stand up ; they 12 shall fear, they shall be ashamed together. The smith maketh an axe, and worketh in the coals, and fashioneth it with hammers, and worketh it with his strong arm : yea, he is hun- 13 gry, and his strength falleth ; he drinketh no water, and is faint. The carpenter stretcheth out a line ; he marketh it out with a pencil ; he shapeth it with planes, and he marketh it out with the compasses, and shapeth it after the figure of a man, according to the beauty of a 14 man, to dwell in the house. He heweth him down cedars, and taketh the holm tree and the oak, and strengtheneth for himself one among the trees of the forest : he planteth a fir tree, 15 and the rain doth nourish it. Then shall it be for a man to burn ; and he taketh thereof, and warmeth himself ; yea, he kindleth it, and baketh bread : yea, he maketh a god, and wor- 16 shippeth it ; he maketh it a graven image, and falleth down thereto. He burneth part thereof in the fire ; with part thereof he eateth flesh ; he roasteth roast, and is satisfied : yea, 17 he warmeth himself, and saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire : and the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image : he falleth down unto it and worshippeth, and 18 prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me ; for thou art my god. They know not, neither do they consider : for he hath shut their eyes, that they cannot see ; and their hearts, that they 19 cannot understand. And none calleth to mind, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, I have burned part of it in the fire ; yea, also I have baked bread upon the coals thereof ; I have roasted flesh and eaten it : and shall I make the residue thereof an abomina- 20 tion ? shall I fall down to the stock of a tree ? He feedeth on ashes : a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand ? 21 Remember these things, O Jacob ; and Israel, for thou art my servant : I have formed 22 thee ; thou art my servant : O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of me. I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins : return unto me ; for I have 23 redeemed thee. Sing, O ye heavens, for the LORD hath done it ; shout, ye lower parts of the earth ; break forth into singing, ye mountains, O forest, and every tree therein : for the LORD hath redeemed Jacob, and will glorify himself in Israel. 24 Thus saith the LORD, thy redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb : I am the LORD, that maketh all things ; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone ; that spreadeth abroad 25 the earth ; who is with me ? that frustrateth the tokens of the liars, and maketh diviners 26 mad ; that turneth wise men backward, and maketh their knowledge foolish : that confirmeth the word of his servant, and performeth the counsel of his messengers ; that saith of Jerusa- lem, She shall be inhabited ; and of the cities of Judah, They shall be built, and I will raise 27 up the waste places thereof : that saith to the deep, Be dry, and I will dry up thy rivers :

28 that saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying of Jerusalem, She shall be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid.

Chap. 44. This chapter opens, like the fortieth and forty-third, with cheering promises to Israel, followed by reasons for confiding in them, drawn from the wisdom, power and goodness of Jehovah. The specific promise, which constitutes the theme or basis of the prophecy, is that of abundant spiritual influences and their fruits, not only internal prosperity, but large accessions from without (verses 1-5). The pledge for the fulfilment of this promise is afforded by the proofs of God’s omniscience, as contrasted with all other gods (verses 6-9). The folly of image-worship is then established by two arguments. The first is that idols are themselves the creatures of mere men (verses 10-14). The other is that they are not only made, and made by man, but made of the very same materials applied to the most trivial domestic uses (verses 15-20). From this demonstration of the power of Jehovah to perform His promise we are now brought back to the promise itself (verses 21-24). This is again confirmed by an appeal to God’s creative power, and illustrated by the raising up of Cyrus as a deliverer to Israel (verses 25-28).

Here again it is important to the just interpretation of the passage that we keep in view the true relation which the main theme (the safety and prosperity of Israel) bears to the arguments and illustrations drawn from God’s foreknowledge as established by prediction, from the impotence of idols and the raising up of Cyrus. Through all these varied forms of promise and of reasoning there runs a thread uniting them, and this thread is the doctrine of the Church, its origin, its design and its relation to its Head and to the world around it. A.

1. All the promises and every encouraging word sent from God to them in the age of Isaiah are good for their successors through all time, being manifestly designed to strengthen their faith and hope in every age until all these great predictions of future blessings shall have been fulfilled.

2. “Thus saith Jehovah; the same who made thee and formed thee from the womb will help thee.” The fact of His having given spiritual existence to Israel, a new-born, regenerated people, and of His having sustained them ever since their birth, guarantees all future blessings which they may need. So, let them never fear. (See the argument of Paul,

Rom. 8: 28-39, and his confidence as expressed in Phil. 1: 6.) “Jeshurun,” another name for Jacob, occurs elsewhere only in De. 32: 15 and 33: 5, 26. Etymologically it means the upright one.

3. The pouring forth of water, in showers or otherwise, is a frequent figure for the bestowment of copious blessings. Thus Mal. 3: 10 and Ezek. 34: 26. That this passage refers to the spirit is shown by the parallelism, “I will pour My spirit upon thy seed; My blessing upon thine offspring.” The same phraseology appears in chap. 32: 15, “Until the spirit be poured upon us from on high.” (See also Joel 2: 28; and in the New Testament such passages as John 7: 37-39; Acts 2: 17, 33.) H. C.

This is one of the most glorious utterances of the Scriptures of the Old Testament; one of those by which Isaiah has deserved the title of the fifth evangelist. But may it not be termed the summary of all God’s promises regarding spiritual blessings to be expected in the fulness of the times; and although the impressive introduction had not been present, “Thus saith the Lord that made thee,” who does not feel at once that it is the voice of God and not of man we hear?

There are no promises so ample as those which are directed to all whose souls have learned to thirst after the living God. In the Lord’s good time they are quickened by fresh streams of life, and not one soul that believes but shall find the fulfilment of this word so as to call forth eternal gratitude. Van O.

The office of the blessed spirit is to inspire every Christian for his life-work, to be an inward power in the soul, to be a substitute to the Church for the inspiring visible presence of Jesus Himself till at the end of the world He shall come in His glorious second advent. There is a sense of inspiration in the very knowledge of the fact that we have the perpetual presence of such wisdom, power and love. The idea of a Divine Comforter ever within—the revealer of truth, the bestower of grace, the inworking spiritual life of the soul, as it were the Lord Jesus become an invisible guardian—this of itself ennobles and animates the believer, when it fully possesses the mind. It brings God near, and makes Him as an atmosphere to the soul, a source of perpetual health and vigor. Faith in such boundless aid near at hand, in a spiritual potency which accompanies us at every step, is natural and easy; and thus the child-like, trustful spirit is begotten, which is the secret of all progress and piety. W. W. P.

Inspiration-force Christ arranges for and promises in the gift of the spirit. He enters the soul to fill out every lack. He communicates, inbreathes, sheds abroad Himself, configuring it inwardly to all that is most perfect in Himself. We have nothing to do but to be in the spirit, and keep ourselves in Christ’s dear walk and company, and we shall be set on surely and constantly toward the completeness required. Christ is the mirror that glasses God’s image for us, and the spirit is the plastic force within, that transfers and photographs that image; and so, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the spirit of the Lord. Bushnell.

My blessing upon thine offspring. The text further suggests: 1. That God will pour His blessing on the children of His people—a promise which in all ages, when parents are faithful, is abundantly fulfilled. 2. That one of the richest blessings which can be imparted to a people is that God’s spirit should descend on their children. Nothing can be better fitted to comfort them in calamity and trial. 3. That the spirit of God alone is the source of true happiness and prosperity to our children. All else—property, learning, accomplishment, beauty, vigor, will be vain. It is by His blessing only—by the influence of piety—that they will spring forth as among the grass, and like willows by the streams of water. 4. Parents should seek this blessing as the richest inheritance which they can have for their children. Parents may leave the world in peace if they see the Divine blessing—the spirit of God descend on their children. Barnes.

4. This is a picture of fertility, verdure and beauty, to represent the fruits of holiness under the effusions of the Spirit of God. These fruits shall spring up and grow as grass and willows in tropical countries where moisture abounds by the river’s side. H. C.

5. It is commonly agreed that this verse predicts the accession of the Gentiles, whom it represents as publicly professing their allegiance to Jehovah and attachment to His people. The act of calling one by name, and that of calling on His name (invoking Him), are intimately blended in the Hebrew usage. Most interpreters understand it here as meaning to praise or celebrate. A.

6-8. The message here reverts from “the new things,” the future outpouring of the Spirit on all the people of Israel, to the controversy with idolatry in Isaiah’s days. The King of Israel, his Redeemer, the First and the Last, are all titles given expressly to our Lord in the New Testament (Job 1: 49; Luke 24: 21; Gal. 4: 5; Rev. 1: 11; 2: 8; 22: 13). The main subject, then, is Israel’s redemption from first to last, and the words, “beside Me there is no God,” are the text of that stern condemnation of idolatry with which this new division of the prophecy begins. Birks.

6. Thus saith the Lord, I am the first, etc. In the Revelation Jesus Christ says, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last” (Rev. 22: 13). These titles of “the first” and “the last” are confined in the prophet to him alone, “besides whom there is no God.” But Jesus hath assumed these titles to Himself; therefore Jesus is that God, besides whom there is no other. Jones of Nayland.

7. In these prophecies every reader is summoned to observe and recognize a foresight, superhuman and truly Divine.

8. The servants of a God so wise and so mighty have no need to fear. His promises to Israel are not of yesterday, but from the days of their fathers. The pronoun, ye, is emphatic. The whole history of the Jews is one public testimony to the reality and nature of God’s moral government of the world. The true God is the only foundation of solid hope, a Rock to His people. There is no help whatever in idols, but in Him alone. Birks.

Without belief in a personal God we can have no religion, and without religion we can have really no life to speak of, no life that a man who has once experienced the joy and the hope and the strength of religion would count life at all. There can be no personal intercourse or relationship between us and an impersonal, unknowable First Cause. With a blind, material, mechanical First Cause we can have no communion, for we ourselves are more than material, more than mechanical. We can think, we can propose ends to ourselves, we are conscious of right and of wrong, we can conceive of one great purpose and idea that the whole mass of men can together work out; and, therefore, we crave communion with One who can cherish purpose, and who can guide the whole world to one righteous end. We must, in short, have both our intellect and our moral nature satisfied, and this can be only in One who originates and guides all things with reason and with righteousness. The world becomes rational to us, the world becomes moral only when we believe in a God Himself rational and moral. Dods.

The more we dwell on it, the more we shall see that the character of the God of the Bible is absolutely perfect, and therefore, either the God of Christianity is the true God, or there can be no being who shall be God to us—none who shall meet that conception of absolute perfection which we form in our minds, and feel that we must transfer to Him. M. H.

12. The general meaning is clear. You are introduced into the blacksmith’s shop; you see the worker in iron getting a red heat upon it in his coals, giving shape to it with his hammer, working it with his strong right arm; but these makers of gods have their human weaknesses. This smith becomes hungry and his strength fails him; having no water to drink, he becomes faint. The poor man has worked hard to make a god; but the god ministers nothing to his help and strength in his time of need! Would not he, if he were a sensible, decent idol, and had any power to befriend his worshippers? H. C.

13. In this and the following verses the prophet exposes the absurdity of image-worship; for what an absurdity is it for a man to dress his meat and make his god with the same stick of wood? or to think that a piece of timber hath any more divinity in it than it had before, because it is fashioned and carved into the figure of a man? The design of the prophet’s argument is to show the absurdity of setting up images as the resemblances of God, and the representative objects of worship; or the supposing them to have some Divine power lodged within them; inasmuch as they have no qualities that answer such a character, being endued neither with power, life nor understanding; and are indeed nothing but what they appear to be, bare, senseless matter, wood or stone. Besides, nothing is a greater dishonor to God than to suppose Him like the image of a corruptible creature. W. Lowth.

14. The essential idea is that man, instead of being the creature, is in some sort the creator of the wood he worships, since it does or may owe its existence to his agency.

15. The prophet seems designedly to interchange the singular and plural forms, in order to identify with more effect the idol worshipped and the sticks consumed. He takes of them (the sticks), kindles a fire, warms himself, bakes bread, then makes a god, and worships, yes, bows down before them (the sticks of wood).

The argument of this and the succeeding verses is intended to exhibit the absurdity of worshipping the same material that is constantly applied to the most trivial domestic uses. A.

17. “He saith, Deliver me, for thou art my god.” There where he pays his homage and allegiance, he justly looks for protection and deliverance. What a strange infatuation is this, to expect help from gods that cannot help themselves! But it is this praying to them that makes them gods, not what the smith or the carpenter did at them. What we place our confidence in for deliverance, that we make a god of. H.

18-20. These are the prophet’s reflections and inferences. They have no heart to know the truth. They love to relieve themselves of the thought of an infinite God, holy, and ever present; and therefore God gives them up to this wretched delusion. They are judicially blinded. Paul accounts for the rise of idolatry in this way. H. C.

20. Men may come to be honest atheists, but they did not begin so. They “held down the truth in unrighteousness” and “did not like to retain God in their knowledge,” and “were given over to believe a lie”—what at the outset was known to be a lie. There is no error or absurdity so monstrous that the habitual sceptic will not accept it. The incredulity of credulity is absolutely amazing. Pierson.

21. Having completed his detailed exposure of the folly of idolatry, or rather of the impotence of idols as contrasted with the power of God, he now resumes the tone of promise and encouragement with which the chapter opens, and assures the chosen people, here personified as Israel or Jacob, that having been constituted such by Jehovah for a special purpose, they could not cease to be the objects of His watchful care. A.

22. The figure is twofold. As clouds hide from us the face of the sun, so transgression hides from us the face of God; and again, as God brushes away the dark clouds with infinite ease when He will, and lets the sunshine come forth with double glory and sweetness, so He takes away the thick clouds of our sins and lets His own face shine forth in unwonted radiance upon us. H. C.

There is a double forgiveness of sin—in heaven and in a man’s own conscience; and therefore sometimes compared to the blotting out of something out of a book, sometimes to the blotting out of a cloud. To the blotting out of a book (Isa. 43:25), that it may be no more remembered or charged upon us. To the blotting out of a cloud, as the sun when it breaketh forth in its strength dispelleth the mists and clouds. Sin interposeth as a cloud, hindering the light of God’s countenance from shining forth upon us. Both these are God’s work—to blot the book and to blot out the cloud. T. Manton.—Here is the work of each Divine person in the ever-glorious Trinity. God the Father blots out sins in the court of heaven; God the Son by His atonement on the cross; and God the Spirit in the court of a sinner’s conscience. Behold, love speaks, grace proclaims, mercy declares, I have dispersed the cloud; I have blotted out thy sins. Grace superabounds over all the aboundings of sin. A deluge of pardoning love, mercy and grace washes away all thy transgressions. They are all dispersed like a cloud driven away by the sun. What! all this rich love, mercy and grace to such a sinner as I? and that too without any deserts of mine? Yes, all is of rich love, free grace and sovereign mercy. But behold the end of this. It is to attach thy heart to a sin-pardoning Lord. For He says, “Return unto Me.” Oh, nothing attracts the gracious heart from sin, the world and vanity, to the Lord, like free and full declarations of Gospel grace and pardoning love. W. Mason.

If sin is opposed as well as felt; if its strivings within you lead to prayer instead of iniquity; if, through the Spirit, the passions of your nature are habitually overcome; if sin is your grief and abhorrence as well as terror; then we are as sure as the Bible can make us, that the warfare in your soul, though painful, and tumultuous, and unceasing, is no mark of the displeasure of heaven; is as plain a token as God can give you, “that He has blotted out your transgressions.” C. B.

23. Isaiah’s full heart would fain move all heaven and all the lowest depths of the earth; all the mountains and forest trees also, to one vast choral song of praise to God for what He has done and is doing to redeem Jacob and glorify Himself in Israel. “Hath redeemed” and “will glorify Himself,” imply that some of this work is seen by the prophet as past, and some of it, or at least, some of its results of glory to God, are seen as future.

24-28. The remaining verses of the chapter fall under one construction and really constitute but one complete sentence. Thus saith the Lord who is thy Redeemer and thy Former from the womb; I am the Lord who maketh all things, doing also all else included in this series. These are some of His great works, enumerated to give His people more enlarged views of

His power and of His loving care of every interest of his Zion. H. C.

24. Maketh all things. The whole Cosmos is just as if made by God. We might go on lifting the curtain from before her face ten, twenty, never so many times, and always with the same result. Never a break in the verdict. For now some thousands of years our natural knowledge has been advancing, and the envious curtain has been rising, step by step; and never yet has the observer, after carefully looking on the picture without and carefully listening to the voice within, ever heard any other words than these: “Just as if made by God—Just as if made by God!” Burr.

It is the exercise of seeking and finding God and His glory beneath the veil suspended on the frame of universal nature that strengthens, enlarges and elevates the soul, and fits it, if grace be there, for the presence and enjoyment of God, when the veil is removed and the soul in the spiritual world sees no more as through a glass darkly, but face to face. The forms of nature seem to have been designed to discipline man’s mind rather than to teach man knowledge; to educate and not to inform the soul is the great object for which the mind is placed within the physical senses, and surrounded by the physical world. The forms of nature are drawn around us not so much to fill us with knowledge or let light into the mind as to make us evolve it ourselves in the exercise of our own powers. Cheever.

27. It cannot well be doubted that the words refer primarily to the fact that God’s servant Cyrus dried the bed of the Euphrates and marched his army into the city in its dry channel, under the city walls. Both Herodotus and Zenophon describe this stratagem. H. C.—This remarkable circumstance, in which the event so exactly corresponded with the prophecy, was also noted by Jeremiah (Jer. 50:38; 51:36). A. C.

28. It is now universally admitted that this verse has reference to Cyrus the Elder or the Great, the son of Cambyses, king of Persia, and the grandson of Astyages the Mede, the hero of the Cyropædia and of the first book of Herodotus, the same who appears in sacred history (2 Chron. 36:23; Ezra 1:1) as the actual restorer of the Jews from exile. He is here called Jehovah’s shepherd, which may either be the usual poetical designation of a king, so common in the oldest classics, or (as Umbreit suggests) a special description of his mission and vocation to gather the lost sheep of the house of Israel. A.

The mention of Cyrus by name is here the seal to the truth and consistency of the whole message. A dim or trivial prediction would be a strange and unnatural sequel to such a glorious array of the Divine titles and perfections. The preface, in its solemnity, and the prophecy, in its clearness and importance, now agree together. The fulfilment was minutely true. The second Temple was founded under Cyrus, and through his decree, but founded only. Its completion and dedication were under Darius after twenty years’ delay. Birks.

It is only at occasional times and in slight degrees that the veil is withdrawn which hides the counsels of the Lord with reference to man, and man is permitted to see that each individual in his limited sphere and nations in their comparatively mighty influence are but instruments working out the counsels of the Most High. Pharaoh, or Cyrus, or the great Assyrian monarchs, or the Jewish race—how great the influence which they exercised on the destinies of mankind! Yet the Almighty God declares of each of them, that in the exercise of that influence they were but carrying out His will; thereby intimating to us (what our own natural conception of the Almighty might lead us to expect) that all things, small and great, good and evil, are foreseen by His omniscient eye, and work out the purposes of His wisdom and His love. Karslake.

Those critics who deny that the original Isaiah could have been the author of these chapters make great account of the minuteness of this prophecy, which even gives the name of Cyrus, though he became king almost two centuries after the death of Hezekiah. They aver that such minuteness of detail is without a parallel, and is entirely foreign from the style of Scripture prophecy. All other prophecies, they say, are general in their statements—so general that human sagacity, coupled with a sort of public anticipation of better days yet to come, will amply suffice to account for their existence. The points to be made in reply to these positions are of this sort: 1. The affirmations made in respect to the general indefiniteness of prophecy are entirely too strong to correspond with the facts. Witness the prophecies respecting the Messiah—one person, mentioned by name, with a very great number of special and minute circumstances connected with His birth, life, spirit, teachings, miracles and death. Witness also the prophecies respecting the fall of Babylon (Jer. 50 and 51; also Isa. 13 and 21: 1-10). 2. The particular circumstance of naming a king has its parallel in the case of Josiah, whose name was given in prophecy as far back as the reign of Jeroboam I., B.C. 975, and was fulfilled in Josiah’s reformation, B.C. 630. (See 1 K. 13: 2 and 2 K. 23: 15-20.) 3. It being admitted that prophecy is by inspiration of God, it can be no objection to any given case of prediction that it is unusually specific and definite. God will shape this feature according to His own wisdom. H. C.