Isaiah 48

A. M. 3292, B. C. 712,

Notes on the verses

Chap. XLVIII. Ver. 1—22. 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

Chap. XLVIII. Ver. 1. And are come forth out of, &c.—Lowth, “Ye that flow from,” &c.—[Abp. Secker conjectures, that we should read mimmeey, “from the bowels of,” instead of mimmey, “out of the waters of;” but no alteration seems necessary. We have the parallel expressions ain yaakov, “the fountain of Jacob,” ((Deuteronomy 33:28);) and mekor yisrael, “the fountain of Israel,” ((Psalms 68:26).)]—Bugster.

Ver. 6. Thou hast heard, &c.—That is, thou hast heard this aforetime; thou seest it accomplished, and wilt not ye declare it? or, acknowledge it?

Ver. 10. Not with—Lowth, “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, “[have tried;” so Lowth and Boothroyd.]

Ver. 14. Which among them.—Twenty-one MSS. and two editions read, the earth, and “my right hand hath spanned the heavens: when I call unto them, they stand up together.” (The rest of the verse is omitted in the scan.)

…his quiver hath he hid me; or spiritual Babylon, ((Revelation 17:21),) 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 the 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 protection, 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 8:21-22).)