Isaiah 43

thee from the womb.] He speaks of the Jewish people as of a single person; and as God hath sometimes designed certain persons for particular offices from their birth and conception, (see chap. xlix. 1. 5; Jer. i. 5.) so He set apart the posterity of Abraham to be his people from the very original of the family. W. Lowth.

Isaiah 43:28

28. Therefore I have profaned &c.] I have suffered the Babylonians to profane my sanctuary, to abuse the chief priests, and pollute whatsoever is sacred. And have made my people a proverb of execration and reproach to all the neighbouring nations. W. Lowth. The state of Israel and Judah in Isaiah’s time was very corrupt with respect to religion and virtue; on which account he denounces God’s judgments, which were ready to fall on them for their sins, and should be inflicted by the Assyrians, Babylonians, and other hostile nations round them. And because some of his expressions might be interpreted as if all the twelve tribes were to be utterly cast away, therefore he frequently intersperses consolations, as in this chapter, to assure the people, that if they were duly corrected and reformed by their captivity, God would bring them out of it, and raise them up again to be his Church and people. As God thus promised his people a restoration from their captivity, upon their true repentance and return to their duty; so will He rescue us all from the