Bible Commentaries

Isaiah 24:16 — loss of flesh is emblematic of a condition of poverty, want, and wretchedness - as sickness and affliction waste away the flesh, and take away the strength; Psalms 109:24 : My knees are weak through fasting, And my flesh faileth of fatness.Psalms 102:5 : By reason of the voice of my groaning My bones cleave to my flesh.See also Job 6:12; Job 19:20; Lamentations 3:4. Leanness is also put to denote the displeasure of God, in Psalms 106:15 : And he gave them their request; But sent leanness into their

Isaiah 41:25 — evidence that He was worthy of their entire confidence, and that even the pagan should see that Yahweh was the true God, and that the idols were nothing. The personage referred to here is undoubtedly Cyrus (see the notes at Isaiah 41:2; compare Isaiah 45:1).From the north - In Isaiah 41:2, he is said to have been raised up ‘from the east.’ Both were true. Cyrus was born in Persia, in the country called in the Scriptures ‘the east,’ but he early went to Media, and came from Media under the direction

Isaiah 45:21 — fact that God had clearly foretold these events long before, and that therefore he was the true God. To this argument he often appeals in proof that he alone is God (see the note at Isaiah 41:22-23).And there is no God else beside me - (See Isaiah 45:5).A just God - A God whose attribute it is always to do right; whose word is true; whose promises are fulfilled; whose threatenings are executed; and who always does that which, under the circumstances of the case, ought to be done. This does not refer

Isaiah 46:10 — plan, that moment the mind can be calm in resignation to his holy will.And I will do all my pleasure - I will accomplish all my wish, or effect all my desire. The word rendered here ‘pleasure’ (חפץ chepēts) means properly delight or pleasure 1 Samuel 15:22; Psalms 1:2; Psalms 16:3; Ecclesiastes 5:4; Ecclesiastes 12:10; then desire, wish, will Job 31:16; and then business, cause, affairs Isaiah 53:10. Here it means that God would accomplish everything which was to him an object of desire; everything

Isaiah 48:18 — the Lord should have submitted themselves unto him: But their time should have endured forever. He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat; And with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee.Compare Deuteronomy 22:29; Isaiah 5:1-7; Ezekiel 18:23-32; Matthew 23:37; Luke 19:21.Then had thy peace been as a river - The word ‘peace’ here (שׁלום shâlôm) means properly wholeness, soundness, and then health, welfare, prosperity, good of every kind. It then denotes peace, as opposed

Isaiah 55:8 — preceding. It is evident, I think, that it is properly connected with the subject of pardon; and the sense must be, that the plans and purposes of God in regard to forgiveness are as far above those of people as the heavens are higher than the earth, Isaiah 55:9. But in what respects his plan of pardon differs from those of people, the prophet does not intimate, and can be understood only by the views which are presented in other parts of the Bible. The connection here would seem to demand some such view

Isaiah 57:16 — cover, as with a garment; or to envelope with anything, as darkness. Then it is used in the sense of having the mind covered or muffled up with sorrow; and means to languish, to be faint or feeble, to fail. Thus it is used in Psalms 61:2; Psalms 107:5; Psalms 142:3; Lamentations 2:11-12, Lamentations 2:19; Jonah 2:7. Other interpretations of this verse may be seen in Rosenmuller; but the above seems to be the true sense. According to this, it furnishes ground of encouragement and comfort to all the

Isaiah 60:11 — instruments of war, would come to an end.That men may bring unto thee - So many shall be coming with the wealth of the Gentiles, that the gates shall be continually open.The forces of the Gentiles - The wealth of the pagan (see the notes at Isaiah 60:5).And that their kings may be brought - Lowth renders this, ‘That their kings may come pompously attended.’ Noyes, ‘May come with their retinues.’ The Chaldee renders it, ‘And their kings be brought bound,’ or in chains. But the Hebrew word used here

Isaiah 62:1 — that the deliverance of his people would break forth as a shining light.Go forth as brightness - The word used here is commonly employed to denote the splendor, or the bright shining of the sun, the moon, or of fire (see Isaiah 60:19; compare Isa 4:5; 2 Samuel 23:4; Proverbs 4:18). The meaning is, that the salvation of people would resemble the clear shining light of the morning, spreading over hill and vale, and illuminating all the world.As a lamp that burneth - A blazing torch - giving light

Daniel 11:16 — land of ornament,” or, “goodly land.” The Hebrew word צבי tsebı̂y means, properly, “splendor, beauty,” and was given to the holy land, or Palestine, on account of its beauty, as being a land of beauty or fertility. Compare Ezekiel 20:6, Ezekiel 20:15; Ezekiel 26:12; Jeremiah 3:19, and Daniel 11:45. The meaning here is, that he would obtain possession of the land of Israel, and that no one would be able to stand against him. By the defeat of Scopas, and of the forces sent to aid him when entrenched

Daniel 11:7 — as soon as he heard of these calamities, to defend her.And shall enter into the fortress of the king of the north - His strongholds. In fact, he overran Syria and Cilicia, and extended his ravages to the Euphrates and the Tigris. Polybius (Hist. l. 5) says that he entered into the fortified cities of Syria, and took them. In the passage before us, the singular - “fortress” - is put for the plural.And shall deal against them - Shall “act” against them. Literally, “shall do against them.”And shall

Hosea 14:1 — the kingdom was past and gone, the children still remained heirs of the promises made to their fathers. As then, before, Hosea declared that Israel, after having long remained solitary, should in the end “seek the Lord and David their king” Hosea 3:5, so now, after these manifold denunciations of their temporal destruction, God not only invites them to repentance, but foretells that they should be wholly converted.Every word is full of mercy. God calls them by the name of acceptance, which he had

Hosea 7:1 — earth a Jerusalem of gold and gems, and fulfill their covetousness in all things of this sort.This their mind He once briefly expressed; “How can ye believe which receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor which cometh from God only?” John 5:24. They persecuted Him then who willed to heal them, as madmen strike the physician offering them medicine, nor did they cease, until they required Him their King to be crucified. Thus was the “iniquity of Ephraim and wickedness of Samaria discovered,”

Hosea 7:16 — believe, that the enemy should depart from them and not carry them away captive. They worked up the people to their will, and so they secured their own destruction. The princes of Judah were especially judged and put to death by Nebuchadnezzar Jeremiah 52:10. The like probably took place in Israel. In any case, those chief in power are chief objects of destruction. Still more did these words come true before the final destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. They were maddened by their own curse, “the

Hosea 7:2 — wise escape them, until he come attended by them, as witnesses against him, at the judgmentseat of God. “His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins. God remembers all their wickedness” Proverbs 5:22.Then He will requite “all;” not the last sins only, but all. So when Moses interceded for his people after the sin of the calf, God says to him, “go lead the people unto the place, of which I have spoken unto thee; behold My Angel shall go before

Joel 2:1 — the land, who were, in fear, to repent. The Church of Christ is foretold in prophecy under the names of “Zion” and of the holy “mountain.” It is the “stone cut out without hands, which became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth” Daniel 2:34-35. Of it, it is said, “Come ye and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob!” Isaiah 2:3. And Paul says, “ye are come unto mount Zion and unto the city of the living God” Hebrews 12:22. The words then are a rule for all

Joel 3:4 — years Israel was given into the hands of the Philistines, until God delivered them by Samuel at Mizpeh. When David was king of all Israel, the Philistines still acted on the offensive, and lost Gath and her towns to David in an offensive war 2 Samuel 5:17-25; 2 Samuel 8:1; 1 Chronicles 18:1; 2 Samuel 21:18; 2 Samuel 13:9-16. To Jehoshaphat some of them voluntarily paid tribute 2 Chronicles 17:11; but in the reign of Jehoram his son, they, with some Arabians, marauded in Judah, plundering the king’s

Amos 7:1 — the greatest. He has not simply made “laws of nature,” as people speak, to do His work, and continue the generations of the world. He Himself was still framing them, giving them being, as our Lord saith, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work” John 5:17. The same power of God is seen in creating the locust, as the universe. The creature could as little do the one as the other. But further, God was “framing” them for a special end, not of nature, but of His moral government, in the correction of

Jonah 1:5 — not lightened. For the whole weight still remained, the body of the prophet, that heavy burden, not from the nature of the body, but from the burden of sin. For nothing is so onerous and heavy as sin and disobedience. Whence also Zechariah Zechariah 5:7 represented it under the image of lead. And David, describing its nature, said Psalms 38:4, “my wickednesses are gone over my head; as a heavy burden they are too heavy for me.” And Christ cried aloud to those who lived in many sins, Matthew 11:28.

Jonah 3:5 — all power in heaven and earth. But they believed further in His unknown mercies; they cast themselves upon the goodness of the hitherto “unknown God.” Yet they believed in Him, as the Supreme God, “the” object of awe, the God אלהים 'ĕlohı̂ym Jonah 3:5, Jonah 3:8, האלהים ha'ĕlohı̂ym Jonah 3:9, although they knew Him not, as He Is , the Self-Existent One. Jonah does not say how they were thus persuaded.God the Holy Spirit relates the wonders of God’s Omnipotence as common everyday things. They are