12 He who made the arm of his glory go at the right hand of Moses, by whom the waters were parted before them, to make himself an eternal name;
Fear and grief came on them; by the strength of your arm they were turned to stone; till your people went over, O Lord, till the people went over whom you have made yours.
Then the waters flowing down from higher up were stopped and came together in a mass a long way back at Adam, a town near Zarethan; and the waters flowing down to the sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, were cut off: and the people went across opposite Jericho.
And let your rod be lifted up and your hand stretched out over the sea, and it will be parted in two; and the children of Israel will go through on dry land. And I will make the heart of the Egyptians hard, and they will go in after them: and I will be honoured over Pharaoh and over his army, his war-carriages, and his horsemen.
And when Moses' hand was stretched out over the sea, the Lord with a strong east wind made the sea go back all night, and the waters were parted in two and the sea became dry land. And the children of Israel went through the sea on dry land: and the waters were a wall on their right side and on their left.
Full of glory, O Lord, is the power of your right hand; by your right hand those who came against you are broken.
By you the sea was parted before them, so that they went through the sea on dry land; and those who went after them went down into the deep, like a stone into great waters.
The sea was cut in two so that they might go through; the waters were massed together on this side and on that.
What was wrong with you, O sea, that you went in flight? O Jordan, that you were turned back? You mountains, why were you jumping like goats, and you little hills like lambs? Be troubled, O earth, before the Lord, before the God of Jacob;
To him who made a way through the Red Sea: for his mercy is unchanging for ever: And let Israel go through it: for his mercy is unchanging for ever: By him Pharaoh and his army were overturned in the Red Sea: for his mercy is unchanging for ever. To him who took his people through the waste land: for his mercy is unchanging for ever.
In place of the thorn will come up the fir-tree, and in place of the blackberry the myrtle: and it will be to the Lord for a name, for an eternal sign which will not be cut off.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Isaiah 63
Commentary on Isaiah 63 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 63
In this chapter we have,
So that, upon the whole, we learn to embrace God's promises with an active faith, and then to improve them, and make use of them, both in prayers and praises.
Isa 63:1-6
It is a glorious victory that is here enquired into first and then accounted for.
In this representation of the victory we have,
Isa 63:7-14
The prophet is here, in the name of the church, taking a review, and making a thankful recognition, of God's dealings with his church all along, ever since he founded it, before he comes, in the latter end of this chapter and in the next, as a watchman upon the walls, earnestly to pray to God for his compassion towards her in her present deplorable state; and it was usual for God's people, in their prayers, thus to look back.
Isa 63:15-19
The foregoing praises were intended as an introduction to this prayer, which is continued to the end of the next chapter, and it is an affectionate, importunate, pleading prayer. It is calculated for the time of the captivity. As they had promises, so they had prayers, prepared for them against that time of need, that they might take with them words in turning to the Lord, and say unto him what he himself taught them to say, in which they might the better hope to prevail, the words being of God's own inditing. Some good interpreters think this prayer looks further, and that it expresses the complaints of the Jews under their last and final rejection from God and destruction by the Romans; for there is one passage in it (ch. 64:4) which is applied to the grace of the gospel by the apostle (1 Co. 2:9), that grace for the rejecting of which they were rejected. In these verses we may observe,