以赛亚书 41:21

Chinese NCV (Simplified)

假神絕不可靠耶和華說：“呈上你們的案件吧！”雅各的王說：“把你們有力的證據拿來吧！”

Parallel Translations

Chinese Union (Simplified)
耶 和 华 对 假 神 说 ： 你 们 要 呈 上 你 们 的 案 件 ； 雅 各 的 君 说 ： 你 们 要 声 明 你 们 确 实 的 理 由 。

Contextual Overview

²¹ The Lord says, "Present your case." The King of Jacob says, "Tell me your arguments. ²² Bring in your idols to tell us what is going to happen. Have them tell us what happened in the beginning. Then we will think about these things, and we will know how they will turn out. Or tell us what will happen in the future. ²³ Tell us what is coming next so we will believe that you are gods. Do something, whether it is good or bad, and make us afraid. ²⁴ You gods are less than nothing; you can't do anything. Those who worship you should be hated. ²⁵ "I have brought someone to come out of the north I have called by name a man from the east, and he knows me. He walks on kings as if they were mud, just as a potter walks on the clay. ²⁶ Who told us about this before it happened? Who told us ahead of time so we could say, ‘He was right'? None of you told us anything; none of you told us before it happened; no one heard you tell about it. ²⁷ I, the Lord , was the first one to tell Jerusalem that the people were coming home. I sent a messenger to Jerusalem with the good news. ²⁸ I look at the idols, but there is not one that can answer. None of them can give advice; none of them can answer my questions. ²⁹ Look, all these idols are false. They cannot do anything; they are worth nothing.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Produce: Heb. Cause to come near, Job 23:3, Job 23:4, Job 31:37, Job 38:3, Job 40:7-9, Micah 6:1, Micah 6:2

Reciprocal: Job 5:1 - and to which Job 13:3 - I desire Isaiah 1:18 - and let us Isaiah 41:1 - let the people Isaiah 43:9 - who among Isaiah 45:20 - yourselves Isaiah 50:8 - let us Jeremiah 12:1 - talk Acts 24:25 - he 1 Peter 3:15 - a reason 2 Peter 1:19 - a more

Cross-References

Genesis 41:9
Then the chief officer who served wine to the king said to him, "Now I remember something I promised to do, but I forgot about it.

Genesis 41:10
There was a time when you were angry with the baker and me, and you put us in prison in the house of the captain of the guard.

Psalms 37:19
They will not be ashamed when trouble comes. They will be full in times of hunger.

Isaiah 9:20
People will grab something on the right, but they will still be hungry. They will eat something on the left, but they will not be filled. Then they will each turn and eat their own children.

Ezekiel 3:3
He said to me, "Human, eat this scroll which I am giving you, and fill your stomach with it." Then I ate it, and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Produce your cause, saith the Lord,.... The Lord having comforted his people under their afflictions and persecutions from their enemies in the first times of Christianity, returns to the controversy between him and the idolatrous Heathens, and challenges them to bring their cause into open court, and let it be publicly tried, that it may be seen on what side truth lies:

bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob; or King of saints, the true Israel of God, who acknowledge the Lord as their King and their God, and whom he rules over, protects and defends; and this title is assumed for the comfort of them, that though he is King over all the nations of the world, yet in an eminent and peculiar sense their King; and he does not style himself the God of Jacob, though he was, because this was the thing in controversy, and the cause to be decided, whether he was the true God, or the gods of the Gentiles; and therefore their votaries are challenged to bring forth the strongest reasons and arguments they could muster together, in proof of the divinity of their idols; their "bony" arguments, as the word x signifies; for what bones are to the body, that strong arguments are to a cause, the support and stability of it.

x עצמותיכם עצם os.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Produce your cause - This address is made to the same persons who are referred to in Isaiah 41:1 - the worshippers of idols; and the prophet here returns to the subject with reference to a further argument on the comparative power of Yahweh and idols. In the former part of the chapter, God had urged his claims to confidence from the fact that he had raised up Cyrus; that the idols were weak and feeble compared with him; and from the fact that it was his fixed purpose to defend his people, and to meet and refresh them when faint and weary. In the verses which follow Isaiah 41:21, he urges his claims to confidence from the fact that he alone was able to predict future events, and calls on the worshippers of idols to show their claims in the same manner. This is the ‘cause’ which is now to be tried.

Bring forth your strong reasons - Adduce the arguments which you deem to be of the greatest strength and power (compare the notes at Isaiah 41:1). The object is, to call on them to bring forward the most convincing demonstration on which they relied, of their power and their ability to save. The argument to which God appeals is, that he had foretold future events. He calls on them to show that they had given, or could give, equal demonstration of their divinity. Lowth regards this as a call on the idol-gods to come forth in person and show their strength. But the interpretation which supposes that it refers to their reasons, or arguments, accords better with the parallelism, and with the connection.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Isaiah 41:21. Bring forth your strong reasons - "Produce these your mighty powers"] "Let your idols come forward which you consider to be so very strong." Hieron. in loc. I prefer this to all other interpretations of this place; and to Jerome's own translation of it, which he adds immediately after, Afferte, si quid forte habetis. "Bring it forward, if haply ye have any thing." The false gods are called upon to come forth and appear in person; and to give evident demonstration of their foreknowledge and power by foretelling future events, and exerting their power in doing good or evil.