Isaiah 51:1 Kommentar

This chapter is designed for the comfort and encouragement of those that fear God and keep his commandments, even when they walk in darkness and have no light. Whether it was intended primarily for the support of the captives in Babylon is not certain, probably it was; but comforts thus generally expressed ought not to be so confined. Whenever the church of God is in distress her friends and well-wishers may comfort themselves and one another with these words, I. That God, who raised his church at first out of nothing, will take care that it shall not perish (Isa 51:1-3). II. That the righteousness and salvation he designs for his church are sure and near, very near and very sure (Isa 51:4-6). III. That the persecutors of the church are weak and dying creatures (Isa 51:7, Isa 51:8). IV. That the same power which did wonders for the church formerly is now engaged and employed for her protection and deliverance (Isa 51:9-11). V. That God himself, the Maker of the world, had undertaken both to deliver his people out of their distress and to comfort them under it, and sent his prophet to assure them of it (Isa 51:12-16). VI. That, deplorable as the condition of the church now was (Isa 51:17-20), to the same woeful circumstances her persecutors and oppressors should shortly be reduced, and worse (Isa 51:21-23). The first three paragraphs of this chapter begin with, "Hearken unto me," and they are God's people that are all along called to hearken; for even when comforts are spoken to them sometimes they "hearken not, through anguish of spirit" (Exo 6:9); therefore they are again and again called to hearken (Isa 51:1, Isa 51:4, Isa 51:7). The two other paragraphs of this chapter begin with "Awake, awake;" in the former (Isa 51:9) God's people call upon him to awake and help them; in the latter (Isa 51:17) God calls upon them to awake and help themselves.

Observe, 1. How the people of God are here described, to whom the word of this consolation is sent and who are called upon to hearken to it, Isa 51:1. They are such as follow after righteousness, such as are very desirous and solicitous both to be justified and to be sanctified, are pressing hard after this, to have the favour of God restored to them and the image of God renewed on them. These are those that seek the Lord, for it is only in the say of righteousness that we can seek him with any hope of finding him. 2. How they are here directed to look back to their original, and the smallness of their beginning: "Look unto the rock whence you were hewn" (the idolatrous family in Ur of the Chaldees, out of which Abraham was taken, the generation of slaves which the heads and fathers of their tribes were in Egypt); "look unto the hole of the pit out of which you were digged, as clay, when God formed you into a people." Note, It is good for those that are privileged by a new birth to consider what they were by their first birth, how they were conceived in iniquity and shapen in sin. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. How hard was that rock out of which we were hewn, unapt to receive impressions, and how miserable the hole of that pit out of which we were digged! The consideration of this should fill us with low thoughts of ourselves and high thoughts of divine grace. Those that are now advanced would do well to remember how low they began (Isa 51:2): "Look unto Abraham your father, the father of all the faithful, of all that follow after the righteousness of faith as he did (Rom 4:11), and unto Sarah that bore you, and whose daughters you all are as long as you do well. Think how Abraham was called alone, and yet was blessed and multiplied; and let that encourage you to depend upon the promise of God even when a sentence of death seems to be upon all the means that lead to the performance of it. Particularly let it encourage the captives in Babylon, though they are reduced to a small number, and few of them left, to hope that yet they shall increase so as to replenish their own land again." When Jacob is very small, yet he is not so small as Abraham was, who yet became father of many nations. "Look unto Abraham, and see what he got by trusting in the promise of God, and take example by him to follow God with an implicit faith." 3. How they are here assured that their present seedness of tears should at length end in a harvest of joys, Isa 51:3. The church of God on earth, even the gospel Zion, has sometimes had her deserts and waste places, many parts of the church, through either corruption or persecution, made like a wilderness, unfruitful to God or uncomfortable to the inhabitants; but God will find out a time and way to comfort Zion, not only by speaking comfortably to her, but by acting graciously for her. God has comforts in store even for the waste places of his church, for those parts of it that seem not regarded or valued. (1.) He will make them fruitful, and so give them cause to rejoice; her wildernesses shall put on a new face, and look pleasant as Eden, and abound in all good fruits, as the garden of the Lord. Note, It is the greatest comfort of the church to be made serviceable to the glory of God, and to be as his garden in which he delights. (2.) He will make them cheerful, and so give them hearts to rejoice. With the fruits of righteousness, joy and gladness shall be found therein; for the more holiness men have, and the more good they do, the more gladness they have. And where there is gladness, to their satisfaction, it is fit that there should be thanksgiving, to God's honour; for whatever is the matter of our rejoicing ought to be the matter of our thanksgiving; and the returns of God's favour ought to be celebrated with the voice of melody, which will be the more melodious when God gives songs in the night, songs in the desert.

INTRODUCTION TO ISAIAH 51 This chapter gives the church and people of God reason to expect comfortable times and certain salvation, though they had many enemies. They are directed to look to Abraham and Sarah, signified by the rock and hole of the pit, and observe how he was called alone, blessed and increased; which should be improved as an argument to strengthen their faith, that God could and would bless and increase his church, though in a low estate, and bring it into a flourishing one, Isa 51:1. They are assured of the publication of the Gospel, expressed by the law, doctrine, and judgment of the Lord; by which means the righteousness and salvation of Christ should be brought nigh to them, as the object of their trust and confidence, Isa 51:4, and also of the perpetuity of his righteousness and salvation, when the heavens, and the earth, and the inhabitants of it, should decay, even their revilers and persecutors, and therefore they need not fear their reproaches and revilings, Isa 51:6, upon which follows a prayer of faith, that the Lord would exert his power as in former times, when he destroyed the Egyptians, and dried up the Red sea for Israel to pass through, the ransomed of the Lord; from whence it might be concluded, that the redeemed of the Lord would be brought into a very comfortable condition again, Isa 51:9 wherefore they had no reason to be afraid of men, since the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth, would deliver, comfort, and establish them, of which he assured them by his prophet, Isa 51:12, and though Jerusalem and her sons were, or would be, in a very distressed condition, through the sword and famine, which is described, Isa 51:17, yet they should be delivered out of it, and their persecutors should be brought into the same, Isa 51:21.

Hearken unto me, ye that follow after righteousness,.... After having declared the doom of the wicked, and those that trust to their own righteousness, the Lord returns to them that fear him, whom he describes as such that "follow after righteousness"; not the righteousness of the law, it is the character of carnal Israel to follow after that; nor is that attainable in the way it is pursued by such; nor is there any justification by it; nor is following that consistent with seeking the Lord, in the next clause: but the righteousness of Christ is meant; not his essential righteousness as God; nor the righteousness of his office as Mediator; but that which consists of his active and passive obedience; of which he is the author and giver, and is in him as its subject: this is what is commonly called imputed righteousness, an evangelical one, the righteousness of faith, and is justifying: "following after" this supposes a want of one; a sense of that want; a view of this as out of themselves, and in another; a love and liking of it, and a vehement desire for it; and what determines to an eager pursuit of it are its perfection, suitableness, and use: now such persons are called to hearken to the Lord; to the Word of the Lord, as the Targum; to Christ, to his Gospel, and to his ordinances, particularly to what is after said: ye that seek the Lord: the Lord Christ, for life and salvation; for righteousness and strength; for more grace from him; a greater knowledge of him, and of doctrine from him, as the Targum; and more communion with him; that seek his honour and glory in the world, and to be for ever with him; who seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; that seek him where he may be found, affectionately and sincerely, carefully, diligently, constantly, and for everything they want: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn; which is in the next verse interpreted of Abraham; so called, not so much for the strength of his faith, as for his old age; when he looked like a hard dry rock, from whom no issue could be expected; and yet from hence a large number of stones were hewn, or a race of men sprung: and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged; that is, to Sarah, who was for a long time barren, whose womb was shut up, but afterwards opened; and from whom, as from a cistern, (to which a wife is sometimes compared, Pro 5:15) flowed the waters of Judah, Isa 48:1 or the Jewish nation. Jerom thinks Christ is meant by both, the Rock of ages, in whom is everlasting strength; to whom men are to look for salvation, righteousness, and strength; and out of whose pierced side flowed blood and water: and in this sense he is followed by Cocceius, who interprets the rock of Christ, the Rock of salvation; out of whose side flowed the church, as out of the hole of a pit or cistern.

(Chapter 51, verses 1 and following) Listen to me, you who pursue what is just and seek the Lord. Consider the rock from which you were hewn, and the quarry from which you were dug. Consider Abraham your father, and Sarah who bore you; for when I called him, he was but one, then I blessed him and made him many. Therefore, the Lord will comfort Zion; he will comfort all her waste places, and make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of praise. LXX: Listen, you who pursue what is just, and seek the Lord. Pay attention to the sturdy rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug. Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who bore you; for he was alone when I called him, but I blessed him and multiplied him. And now I will comfort you, Zion. I have made her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of praise. While the sleeping ones are in sorrow and perpetual grief, who kindled a fire for themselves and made the flames very strong, you who pursue justice and seek the Lord (which signifies the choir of the Apostles and of those who believe through the Apostles), look back at the rock, that is, your father Abraham, from whom you were cut off, and at the cave of the lake, from which you were cut off, that is, Sarah who bore you. And consider this, that when he was of one hundred years and his wife was barren, I multiplied his children like the stars of the sky, so that the multitude would surpass the number. If, therefore, from one man so many thousands of people have been born, what great thing is it for me to restore the ruins of Zion and to change its deserts into a paradise of pleasure and into the garden of the Lord which God planted in Eden opposite the East? And let there be found in it joy and gladness instead of diverse trees, confession and the voice of praise. The Jews refer this to Zerubbabel's time, because after the devastation of Babylon, Zion was restored, the Temple was built, and the ancient religion was restored. But how does it say above (in chapter XLIX, 22, 23) to Zion: They will bring your sons in their arms, and they will carry your daughters on their shoulders. And your kings will be your foster fathers, and your queens will be your foster mothers. And: Behold, these will come from afar, and those from the north and the sea, and those from the southern land; when Zion says: The place is too narrow for me, make room for me to dwell, which excludes the mediocrity of those times, and are not known to be fulfilled above earthly Jerusalem: thus the Lord also speaks here to those who persecute what is just, according to what is said elsewhere: Seek peace, and pursue it (Psalm XXXIII, 5); and again: Pursuing hospitality (Romans XI, 13). And they seek the Lord, so that from past events he may infer his presence: since much more difficult things have already happened, they should not doubt the future things that are promised. Furthermore, it is said by the persecutors of justice according to the Septuagint, that they may look upon the most sturdy rock, which they have cut down, and the pit of the trap they have dug, that is, the Lord as Savior, about whom the Apostle speaks: And that rock was Christ (I Cor. X, 4). And elsewhere it is written: He set my feet upon a rock (Ps. XXXIX, 3). And again: They have pierced my hands and feet. For they have pierced my side with a spear, from which blood and water have flowed, and they have pierced my hands and feet, as the Lord and Savior himself said: They have pierced my hands and feet, they have numbered all my bones (Ps. 22:16). We can call the rock that was hewn out the sepulcher of the Savior, in which he was buried, and rising from the dead, he begot innumerable children. And he was called Abraham, that is, the father of many nations. Just as Sarah, once barren, is interpreted as the Church, which is also called Zion, whom the Lord has comforted, and has made her desolate places like a paradise. For she has more children of the desolate than of her who has a husband. And what is said: And I will place in the paradise of the Lord those things that are towards the West, or in the garden of God, signifies that which, while sitting in darkness and the shadow of death, a sudden light has risen. The paradise, in which we turn our delights, is translated in Hebrew as Eden (), about which it is written in the beginning of Genesis. And this should be noted, that in Zion, which is compared to the paradise of God, there should be nothing other than joy and gladness, confession and the voice of praise, so that what the saints with the Angels of God will do in heaven, they should also meditate on this constantly on earth in the praise of the Lord.

The Jews refer this to the time of Zerubbabel, because after the devastation of Babylon Zion was restored and its temple built up and the old religion reinstated.… But here the Lord speaks to those who were persecuting him because he was righteous.… Moreover, according to the Septuagint, it is said to the persecutors of righteousness that they are to look on the hardest stone, which they cut out, and on the pit of the crater that they dug, that is, on the Lord and Savior, about whom the apostle said, “The rock was Christ.” We can say that the cut-out rock means the tomb of the Savior into which he was placed. When he rose from the dead, he bore innumerable children and was called Abraham, that is, the father of many nations, just as Sarah’s once sterile womb means the church, which is otherwise called Zion, whom the Lord comforted and made its desert places like paradise.

“Righteous,” he says, instead of “righteousness,” which is through Christ through faith in him, a faith that justifies the ungodly and removes all stain from those who have been filthy, and cleanses them in the Spirit and prepares for them the shining honor of sonship. They pursue righteousness, not in the sense of driving it before them and so away from their minds, but of running toward it to take hold of it. As David said, “Seek peace and pursue it.” … The speech of the holy prophets always draws figures from the visible and the tangible things. For it has expressions that transcend reference, the senses and even the mind. In this way “Zion” is mentioned—not that we think of the earthly city but rather take it to be the spiritual one, that is, the church of the living God. Or how else would we see the words of the prophet coming true?…“Worship in spirit and truth,” and the power of spiritual worship gave off the pleasant spiritual fragrance and joy in the hope that is in Christ. For if we trust that our body of lowliness will be transformed into the body of his glory, so we shall be with him and reign with him, assembled among the children of God and enriched with his divine and life-giving Spirit. We too bring forward the spiritual harvest to him—the confession and hymns of thanksgiving. For with such sacrifices is God well pleased.

921. Give ear to me, you that follow. Here he excludes the second impediment to their liberation, which could be believed from the oppression and humiliation of the Jews. And this is divided into three parts: in the first, the impediment of dejection from their fewness in number is excluded; in the second, dejection from the power of their oppressors: hearken to me (Isa 51:7); in the third, from the weight of their punishment: but I am the Lord your God, who trouble the sea (Isa 51:15). 922. Concerning the first, he does three things. First, he stirs up attention, setting out their fitness: you that follow, by good works, and you that seek, by right intention: the rich have wanted, and have suffered hunger: but they that seek the Lord shall not be deprived of any good (Ps 33:11[34:10]). Second, he excludes fear of fewness in number; third, he sets out the firmness of the promise, lift up your eyes to heaven (Isa 51:6).

Sequel of the prophecies of Jeremiah against Babylon. The dreadful, sudden, and final ruin that shall fall upon the Chaldeans, who have compelled the nations to receive their idolatrous rites, (see an instance in the third chapter of Daniel), set forth by a variety of beautiful figures; with a command to the people of God, (who have made continual intercession for the conversion of their heathen rulers), to flee from the impending vengeance, Jer 51:1-14. Jehovah, Israel's God, whose infinite power, wisdom and understanding are every where visible in the works of creation, elegantly contrasted with the utterly contemptible objects of the Chaldean worship, Jer 51:15-19. Because of their great oppression of God's people, the Babylonians shall be visited with cruel enemies from the north, whose innumerable hosts shall fill the land, and utterly extirpate the original inhabitants, vv. 20-44. One of the figures by which this formidable invasion is represented is awfully sublime. "The Sea is come up upon Babylon; she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof." And the account of the sudden desolation produced by this great armament of a multitude of nations, (which the prophet, dropping the figure, immediately subjoins), is deeply afflictive. "Her cities are a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness; a land wherein no man dwelleth, neither doth any son of man pass thereby." The people of God a third time admonished to escape from Babylon, lest they be overtaken with her plagues, Jer 51:45, Jer 51:46. Other figures setting forth in a variety of lights the awful judgments with which the Chaldeans shall be visited on account of their very gross idolatries, Jer 51:47-58. The significant emblem with which the chapter concludes, of Seraiah, after having read the book of the Prophet Jeremiah against Babylon, binding a stone to it, and casting it into the river Euphrates, thereby prefiguring the very sudden downfall of the Chaldean city and empire, Jer 51:59-64, is beautifully improved by the writer of the Apocalypse, Rev 18:21, in speaking of Babylon the Great, of which the other was a most expressive type; and to which many of the passages interspersed throughout the Old Testament Scriptures relative to Babylon must be ultimately referred, if we would give an interpretation in every respect equal to the terrible import of the language in which these prophecies are conceived.

Ye that follow after righteousness - The people who, feeling the want of salvation, seek the Lord in order to be justified. The rock - Abraham. The hole of the pit - Sarah; as explained in Isa 51:2.

ENCOURAGEMENT TO THE FAITHFUL REMNANT OF ISRAEL TO TRUST IN GOD FOR DELIVERANCE, BOTH FROM THEIR LONG BABYLONIAN EXILE, AND FROM THEIR PRESENT DISPERSION. (Isa. 51:1-23) me--the God of your fathers. ye . . . follow after righteousness--the godly portion of the nation; Isa 51:7 shows this (Pro 15:9; Ti1 6:11). "Ye follow righteousness," seek it therefore from Me, who "bring it near," and that a righteousness "not about to be abolished" (Isa 51:6-7); look to Abraham, your father (Isa 51:2), as a sample of how righteousness before Me is to be obtained; I, the same God who blessed him, will bless you at last (Isa 51:3); therefore trust in Me, and fear not man's opposition (Isa 51:7-8, Isa 51:12-13). The mistake of the Jews, heretofore, has been, not in that they "followed after righteousness," but in that they followed it "by the works of the law," instead of "by faith," as Abraham did (Rom 9:31-32; Rom 10:3-4; Rom 4:2-5). hole of . . . pit--The idea is not, as it is often quoted, the inculcation of humility, by reminding men of the fallen state from which they have been taken, but that as Abraham, the quarry, as it were (compare Isa 48:1), whence their nation was hewn, had been called out of a strange land to the inheritance of Canaan, and blessed by God, the same God is able to deliver and restore them also (compare Mat 3:9).

The prophetic address now turns again from the despisers of the word, whom it has threatened with the torment of fire, to those who long for salvation. "Hearken to me, ye that are in pursuit of righteousness, ye that seek Jehovah. Look up to the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hollow of the pit whence ye are dug. Look up toe Abraham your forefather, and to Sara who bare you, that he was one when I called him, and blessed him, and multiplied him. For Jehovah hath comforted Zion, comforted all her ruins, and turned her desert like Eden, and her steppe as into the garden of God; joy and gladness are found in her, thanksgiving and sounding music." The prophecy is addressed to those who are striving after the right kind of life and seeking Jehovah, and not turning from Him to make earthly things and themselves the object of their pursuit; for such only are in a condition by faith to regard that as possible, and in spirit to behold that as real, which seems impossible, and in spirit to behold that as real, which seems impossible to human understanding, because the very opposite is lying before the eye of the senses. Abraham and Sarah they are mentally to set before them, for they are types of the salvation to be anticipated now. Abraham is the rock whence the stones were hewn, of which the house of Jacob is composed; and Sarah with her maternal womb the hollow of the pit out of which Israel was brought to the light, just as peat is dug out of a pit, or copper out of a mine. The marriage of Abraham and Sarah was for a long time unfruitful; it was, as it were, out of hard stone that God raised up children to Himself in Abraham and Sarah. The rise of Israel was a miracle of divine power and grace. In antithesis to the masculine tsūr, bōr is made into a feminine through maqqebheth, which is chosen with reference to neqēbhâh. to חצּבתּם we must supply ממּנּוּ ... אשׁר, and to נקּרתּם, ממּנּה ... אשׁר. Isa 51:2 informs them who the rock and the hollow of the pit are, viz., Abraham your forefather, and Sarah techōlelkhem, who bare you with all the pains of childbirth: "you," for the birth of Isaac, the son of promise, was the birth of the nation. The point to be specially looked at in relation to Abraham (in comparison with whom Sarah falls into the background) is given in the words quod unum vocavi eum (that he was one when I called him). The perfect קראתיו relates the single call of divine grace, which removed Abraham from the midst of idolaters into the fellowship of Jehovah. The futures that follow (with Vav cop.) point out the blessing and multiplication that were connected with it (Gen 12:1-2). He is called one ('echâd as in Eze 33:24; Mal 2:15), because he was one at the time of his call, and yet through the might of the divine blessing became the root of the whole genealogical tree of Israel, and of a great multitude of people that branched off from it. This is what those who are now longing for salvation are to remember, strengthening themselves by means of the olden time in their faith in the future which so greatly resembles it. The corresponding blessing is expressed in preterites (nicham, vayyâsem), inasmuch as to the eye of faith and in prophetic vision the future has the reality of a present and the certainty of a completed fact. Zion, the mother of Israel (Isa 50:1), the counterpart of Sarah, the ancestress of the nation-Zion, which is now mourning so bitterly, because she is lying waste and in ruins - is comforted by Jehovah. The comforting word of promise (Isa 40:1) becomes, in her case, the comforting fact of fulfilment (Isa 49:13). Jehovah makes her waste like Eden (lxx ὡς παράδεισον), like a garden, as glorious as if it had been directly planted by Himself (Gen 13:10; Num 24:6). And this paradise is not without human occupants; but when you enter it you find joy and gladness therein, and hear thanksgiving at the wondrous change that has taken place, as well as the voice of melody (zimrâh as in Amo 5:23). The pleasant land is therefore full of men in the midst of festal enjoyment and activity. As Sarah gave birth to Isaac after a long period of barrenness, so Zion, a second Sarah, will be surrounded by a joyous multitude of children after a long period of desolation.