Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Calvin Complete Commentary - Isaiah 13:4 - 13:4
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
4.The noise of a multitude in the mountains. He adds a still more lively representation, ( ὑποτύπωσιν,) that is, a description by which he places the event as it were before our eyes. The prophets are not satisfied with speaking, without also giving a bold picture of the events themselves. Words uttered plainly, and in the ordinary manner, do not strike us so powerfully or move our hearts so much as those figures which delineate a lively resemblance of the events. As if he had said, “ indeed, you hear a man speaking, but know that this voice will be so powerful that at the sound of it nations shall be roused, peoples shall make a noise, and in vast crowds shall shout and roar to bring destruction on the inhabitants of Babylon. This proclamation, therefore, will be as efficacious, even after that I am dead, as if you now saw what I foretell to you.”
In this event, therefore, we see how great is the efficacy of the word, which all the creatures both in heaven and in earth obey. We ought to be more strongly confirmed in the belief of this doctrine, by perceiving that every one of the events which had been predicted many centuries before has taken place. For this reason he declares that the Lord of hosts mustereth the host of the battle, that the various nations are moved by God’ direction, and that, although nothing was farther from their intention than to inflict the punishment which he had appointed, still they do nothing but according to his command, as if some earthly general were to draw up his forces.