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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Isaiah 41:21 - 41:29
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The Coming of the Deliverer
v. 21. Produce your cause, saith the Lord, presenting their case for the court's consideration; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob, their arguments for the correctness of their position that they had a right to continue in their idolatry, in their enmity against God.
v. 22. Let them bring them forth and show us what shall happen; let them show the former things, the events of the very nearest future, what they be, that we may consider them, laying their argument to heart, turning to it as a strong support of their cause, and know the latter end of them, or declare us things for to come, understand the consequences of events and acts which would take place in the future. The enemies are urged from every angle to bring proof in support of their position as idolaters, but such clear proof as would demand acknowledgment.
v. 23. Show the things that. are to come hereafter, at any time in the future, for prophecy is one of the strongest proofs of divinity, that we may know that ye are gods, duly accept them as such; yea, do good or do evil, anything at all that will at least show life, that we may be dismayed and behold it together, concede that they had done wrong in opposing the claims of the idols, and be filled with fear. The entire section is built up in an ironical manner of speaking which greatly heightens the effect of the prophet's argument: the living God over against the helpless, the dead idols!
v. 24. Behold, ye are of nothing, and your work of naught; an abomination is he that chooseth you, such is the conclusion which one is bound to reach from the premises presented: the idolater like his idol under the condemnation of the Lord. All the more prominently and emphatically, therefore, Jehovah stands out as the God of history and of prophecy, who directs the affairs of the whole world according to His divine will.
v. 25. I have raised up one from the North, and he shall come, serving as the instrument of the Lord; from the rising of the sun shall he call upon My name, proclaiming the true God, as Cyrus did when he issued his decree permitting the Jews to return to their country, 2Ch_36:23; Ezr_1:1-2; and he shall come upon princes as upon mortar, treading them under foot as the clay of the streets, and as the potter treadeth clay, the feature of contempt entering very strongly at this point.
v. 26. Who hath declared from the beginning that we may know, proved His divinity by foretelling the future, and before-time, that we may say, He is righteous, he is in the right? Yea, there is none, namely, among the enemies, the idolaters, and their idols, that showeth; yea, there is none that declareth; yea, there is none that heareth your words; there was not one real prophet among them.
v. 27. The first shall say to Zion, Behold, behold them, or, "I let Zion have the first one who says, Behold, there it is"; and I will give to Jerusalem one that bringeth good tidings; that is, the idols were unable to foretell the future, but Jehovah, the true God, predicted the happening just as it came to pass, His messengers telling what He would surely perform in the future. Thus the godhead of Jehovah was fully proved.
v. 28. For I beheld, and there was no man; even among them, the enemies, and there was no counselor, not one true prophet, that, when I asked of them, could answer a word, or in the form of a question: "And if I ask them, do they so much as answer?" It is a most emphatic way of saying that all the claims of the idolaters are fraudulent and empty.
v. 29. Behold, they are all vanity, emptiness, nothingness; their works are nothing; their molten images are wind and confusion, utter desolation. They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them. Psa_115:8.