Isaiah 44

Isaiah 44:6

I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God.

I am the only true, eternal God, without all possibility of alteration; and therefore will be ever approved most constant to my own decrees and purposes.

Isaiah 44:7

And who, as I, shall call, and shall declare it, and set it in order for me?

Since I decreed, before ever any of your idol-gods were extant in the world, to select a people to myself from the rest of the earth, which of your false gods could or can order their vocation and government, as I have done!

Isaiah 44:12

Yea, he is hungry, and his strength faileth: he drinketh no water, and is faint.

Weak and foolish man will be making a god to himself; and finds himself hungry, and thirsty, and faint, with the very work, while he makes it; yet, so eager is he in that business, as that he forbears his own necessary sustenance, in his zeal to finish it.

Isaiah 44:18

They have not known nor understood: for he hath shut their eyes, that they cannot see; and their hearts, that they cannot understand.

God hath, in his just judgment, given them up to a strange besottedness, and hath suffered their idol to bereave them of their wits and senses; so as, though they have both hearts and eyes, yet they neither see nor understand.

Isaiah 44:20

He feedeth of 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?

That which should be his comfort, is his affliction and misery: he trusteth to his idol, and that shall no more help him, than ashes can feed and nourish him: he hath given way to these idolatrous fopperies; and now they have utterly infatuated him, so as he hath not the grace to bethink himself of his fond and wicked courses.

Isaiah 44:28

That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built: and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid.

That saith of Cyrus, that Persian Monarch who shall after many years be born, he is the man, that shall favour and restore my people, and perform my pleasure concerning their return from the Babylonish captivity; who shall also give order for the re-edifying of the walls of Jerusalem and the Temple.