5 and now, what have I here, saith Jehovah, that my people hath been taken away for nought? They that rule over them make them to howl, saith Jehovah; and continually all the day is my name scorned.
For the name of God is blasphemed on your account among the nations, according as it is written.
I was wroth with my people, I polluted mine inheritance, and gave them into thy hand: thou didst shew them no mercy; upon the aged didst thou very heavily lay thy yoke;
And when they came to the nations whither they went, they profaned my holy name, when it was said of them, These are the people of Jehovah, and they are gone forth out of his land. But I had pity for my holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the nations whither they went. Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for my holy name, which ye have profaned among the nations whither ye went. And I will hallow my great name, which was profaned among the nations, which ye have profaned in the midst of them; and the nations shall know that I [am] Jehovah, saith the Lord Jehovah, when I shall be hallowed in you before their eyes.
But I wrought for my name's sake, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations, in whose sight I had brought them out.
The young men have borne the mill, and the youths have stumbled under the wood. The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their music. The joy of our heart hath ceased; our dance is turned into mourning.
He hath cut off in fierce anger all the horn of Israel: he hath withdrawn his right hand from before the enemy; and he burned up Jacob like a flaming fire, devouring round about.
Israel is a hunted sheep; the lions have driven him away: first the king of Assyria devoured him, and last this Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon hath broken his bones.
For thus saith Jehovah: Ye have sold yourselves for nought, and ye shall be redeemed without money.
Thy children have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets, as an oryx in a net: they are full of the fury of Jehovah, the rebuke of thy God.
And the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with harshness; and they embittered their life with hard labour in clay and bricks, and in all manner of labour in the field: all their labour with which they made them serve was with harshness. And the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives -- of whom the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other was Puah -- and he said, When ye help the Hebrew women in bearing, and see [them] on the stool, if it be a son, then ye shall kill him, but if a daughter, then she shall live.
And Isaiah said to them, Thus shall ye say to your master, Thus saith Jehovah: Be not afraid of the words that thou hast heard, wherewith the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.
What hast thou here? and whom hast thou here, that thou hast hewn thee out a sepulchre here, [as] he that heweth out his sepulchre on high, cutting out in the rock a habitation for himself?
Rise up, O God, plead thine own cause: remember how the foolish man reproacheth thee all the day; Forget not the voice of thine adversaries: the tumult of those that rise up against thee ascendeth continually.
Remember this, that an enemy hath reproached Jehovah, and a foolish people have contemned thy name.
Because of the voice of him that reproacheth and blasphemeth; by reason of the enemy and the avenger.
Thou hast sold thy people for nought, and hast not increased [thy wealth] by their price;
And Jehovah said, I have seen assuredly the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and their cry have I heard on account of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows.
And it came to pass during those many days, that the king of Egypt died. And the children of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and cried; and their cry came up to God because of the bondage; and God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob;
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Isaiah 52
Commentary on Isaiah 52 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 52
The greater part of this chapter is on the same subject with the chapter before, concerning the deliverance of the Jews out of Babylon, which yet is applicable to the great salvation Christ has wrought out for us; but the last three verses are on the same subject with the following chapter, concerning the person of the Redeemer, his humiliation and exaltation. Observe,
Isa 52:1-6
Here,
Isa 52:7-12
The removal of the Jews from Babylon to their own land again is here spoken of both as a mercy and as a duty; and the application of v. 7 to the preaching of the gospel (by the apostle, Rom. 10:15) plainly intimates that that deliverance was a type and figure of the redemption of mankind by Jesus Christ, to which what is here said of their redemption out of Babylon ought to be accommodated.
Isa 52:13-15
Here, as in other places, for the confirming of the faith of God's people and the encouraging of their hope in the promises of temporal deliverances, the prophet passes from them to speak of the great salvation which should in the fulness of time be wrought out by the Messiah. As the prophecy of Christ's incarnation was intended for the ratification of the promise of their deliverance from the Assyrian army, so this of Christ's death and resurrection is to confirm the promise of their return out of Babylon; for both these salvations were typical of the great redemption and the prophecies of them had a reference to that. This prophecy, which begins here and is continued to the end of the next chapter, points as plainly as can be at Jesus Christ; the ancient Jews understood it of the Messiah, though the modern Jews take a great deal of pains to pervert it, and some of ours (no friends therein to the Christian religion) will have it understood of Jeremiah; but Philip, who hence preached Christ to the eunuch, has put it past dispute that of him speaks the prophet this, of him and of no other man, Acts 8:34, 35. Here,