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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Isaiah 45:11 - 45:11
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After this double woe, which is expressed in general terms, but the application of which is easily made, the words of Jehovah are directly addressed to the presumptuous criticizers. Isa 45:11 “Thus saith Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker, Ask me what is to come; let my sons and the work of my hands be committed to me!” The names by which He calls Himself express his absolute blamelessness, and His absolute right of supremacy over Israel. שְׁאָלוּנִי is an imperative, like שְׁמָעוּנִי in Gen 23:8; the third person would be written שְׁאֵלוּניִ. The meaning is: If ye would have any information or satisfaction concerning the future (“things to come,” Isa 41:23; Isa 44:7), about which ye can neither know nor determine anything of yourselves, inquire of me. צִוָּה with an accusative of the person, and עַל of the thing, signifies to commit anything to the care of another (1Ch 22:12). The fault-finders in Israel were to leave the people of whom Jehovah was the Maker (a retrospective allusion to Isa 45:10 and Isa 45:9), in the hands of Him who has created everything, and on whom everything depends. Isa 45:12 “I, I have made the earth, and created men upon it; I, my hands have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I called forth.” יָדַי אֲנִי, according to Ges. §121, 3, is equivalent to my hands, and mine alone - a similar arrangement of words to those in Gen 24:27; 2Ch 28:10; Ecc 2:15. Hitzig is wrong in his rendering, “all their host do I command.” That of Ewald is the correct one, “did I appoint;” for tsivvâsh, followed by an accusative of the person, means to give a definite order or command to any one, the command in this case being the order to come into actual existence (= esse jussi, cf., Psa 33:9).