5 Now therefore, what do I here, says Yahweh, seeing that my people is taken away for nothing? those who rule over them do howl, says Yahweh, and my name continually all the day is blasphemed.
For "the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you," just as it is written.
I was angry with my people, I profaned my inheritance, and gave them into your hand: you did show them no mercy; on the aged have you very heavily laid your yoke.
When they came to the nations, where they went, they profaned my holy name; in that men said of them, These are the people of Yahweh, and are gone forth out of his land. But I had regard for my holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the nations, where they went. Therefore tell the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord Yahweh: I don't do [this] for your sake, house of Israel, but for my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations, where you went. I will sanctify my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in the midst of them; and the nations shall know that I am Yahweh, says the Lord Yahweh, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes.
But I worked for my name's sake, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations, in whose sight I brought them out.
The young men bare the mill; The children stumbled under the wood. The elders have ceased from the gate, The young men from their music. The joy of our heart is ceased; Our dance is turned into mourning.
He has cut off in fierce anger all the horn of Israel; He has drawn back his right hand from before the enemy: He has burned up Jacob like a flaming fire, which devours round about.
Israel is a hunted sheep; the lions have driven him away: first, the king of Assyria devoured him; and now at last Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon has broken his bones.
For thus says Yahweh, You were sold for nothing; and you shall be redeemed without money.
Your sons have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets, as an antelope in a net; they are full of the wrath of Yahweh, the rebuke of your God.
The Egyptians ruthlessly made the children of Israel serve, and they made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field, all their service, in which they ruthlessly made them serve. The king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah, and he said, "When you perform the duty of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birth stool; if it is a son, then you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live."
Isaiah said to them, Thus shall you tell your master, Thus says Yahweh, Don't be afraid of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.
"What are you doing here? and who has you here, that you have hewed out a tomb here? Cutting him out a tomb on high, chiseling a habitation for himself in the rock!"
Arise, God! Plead your own cause. Remember how the foolish man mocks you all day. Don't forget the voice of your adversaries. The tumult of those who rise up against you ascends continually.
Remember this, that the enemy has mocked you, Yahweh. Foolish people have blasphemed your name.
At the taunt of one who reproaches and verbally abuses, Because of the enemy and the avenger.
You sell your people for nothing, And have gained nothing from their sale.
Yahweh said, "I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.
It happened in the course of those many days, that the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up to God because of the bondage. 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,