Isaiah 43

My Notes Authors Matthew Henry - Commentary on the Whole Bible This charge (and a high charge it is which is here exhibited against Jacob and Israel, God’s professing people) comes in here, 1. To clear God’s justice in bringing them into captivity, and to vindicate that. Were they not in covenant with him? Had they not his sanctuary among them? _Why then did the Lord deal thus with his land? _Deut. xxix. 24. Here is a good reason given: they had neglected God and had cast him off, and therefore he justly rejected them and gave them to the curse (v. 28); and they must be brought to own this before they are prepared for deliverance; and they did so, Dan. ix. 5; Neh. ix. 33. 2. To advance God’s mercy in their deliverance and to make that appear more glorious. Many things are before observed to magnify the power of God in it; but this magnifies his goodness, that he should do such great and kind things for a people that had been so very provoking to him and were now suffering the just punishment of their iniquity. The pardoning of their sin was as great an instance of God’s power (for so Moses reckons it, Num. xiv. 17, &c.) as the breaking of the yoke of their captivity. Now observe here,

My Notes Authors John Calvin - Commentaries **_Theft hast not brought to me. _A question arises, “Why does the Prophet bring this reproach against the Jews, who, it is evident, were very careful to offer sacrifices according to the injunction of the Law?” Some refer this to the time of the captivity, when they could not have offered sacrifices to God though they had been willing to do so; for it was not lawful for them to offer sacrifices in any other place than Jerusalem, and therefore they could not appease God by sacrifices. (Deuteronomy 12:13 .) But I rather think that it is a general reproach; for at the very time when the people were sacrificing, they could not boast of their merits or personal worth, as if they had laid God under obligations in this manner; for they were wanting in the sacrifices which God chiefly approves, that is, faith and obedience, without which nothing can be acceptable to God. There was no integrity of heart, “their hands were full of blood,” (Isaiah 1:15 ;) everything was filled with fraud and robbery, and there was no room for justice or equity. Although, therefore, they daily brought beasts to the temple, and sacrificed them, yet he justly affirms that they offered nothing to him. Sacrifices could not be accepted by God when they were separated kern truth, and were offered to another rather than to God; for he did not demand them in themselves, but so far as the people treated them as exercises of faith and obedience, Hence we infer that the Prophet says nothing new, but continues to exhibit the same doctrine, namely, that God rejects all services that are rendered in a slavish spirit, or in any other respect are defective.

My Notes Authors John Calvin - Commentaries **I, I am he. 170170 “Ce suis-je, ce suis-je.” “It is I, it is I.” He concludes the former statement by this exclamation, as if he had said, that he may boast of his right, that he blots out the iniquities of his people, and restores them to freedom; for they have no merits by which they could obtain it, since they deserve the severest punishment, and even destruction. The same word is twice repeated by him, that he may more sharply rebuke the ingratitude of men who are wont to rob him of that honor which belongs to him alone, or in some way to throw it into the shade.

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My Notes Authors John Calvin - Commentaries **_Thy first father sinned. _This passage is almost universally understood to refer to the “first parent” Adam. (Genesis 3:6 .) Some prefer to interpret it as relating to Abraham; as if he had said, “You have not alone sinned, but your father Abraham himself sinned, though he was a man of eminent holiness.” 171171 Jarchi adopts this view, and paraphrases the clause thus; “‘Thy first father sinned,’ that is, when he said, ‘How shall I know that I shall inherit it?’” (Genesis 15:8 .) This passage was not likely to have occurred to modern readers as the most striking fact in Abraham’s history for proving that that eminently holy man was not absolutely perfect; and the selection of it is a curious specimen of Jewish interpretation. — Ed. (Joshua 24:2 .)

My Notes Authors John Calvin - Commentaries **_Therefore I will pollute. _The copulative ו _(vau) _here means _therefore, _and the preterite tense, I have polluted, ought to have a future signification, though it may also be rendered in the past tense; but I have preferred the future, in order to apply it to the time of the captivity; for he directly addresses those who were to live under the captivity. If it be thought preferable to extend it to various calamities, by which God had covered his people with disgrace, and at the same time to connect with it their exile in Babylon, there will be no impropriety; and indeed it will be more appropriate to view it as a description of what frequently happened to them in former times, that they may be warned for the future, that they have no privilege which can defend them from receiving again with the deepest disgrace the punishment of their ingratitude, tie shews, therefore, the cause of this destruction. It was because the transgressions of the fathers and of the children must be punished, that is, when there was no end of sinning, but when they daily kindled the wrath of God against them, till he at length punished them.

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