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Isaiah 41

2 God’s mercy in chusing his people 6 Their idolatry. 27 Deliverance promised to Zion
1.Keep asilence before me, ô ylands, and let the people brenue their strength: let them come near, and let them speak: let us come together into judgement.
2.Who raised up cjustice from the East, and called him to his foot? and gave the nations before him, and subdued the Kings? he gave them as dust to his sword, and as scattered stubble unto his bow.
3.He pursued them, and passed safely by the way that he had not gone with his feet.
4.Who hath wroght and done it? he that calleth the dgenerations from the beginning. I the Lord am the efirst, and with the last I am the same.
5.The yles saw it, and did ffear and the ends of the earth were abashed, drew near, and gcame.
6.Every man helped his neighbour and said to his brother, hBe strong.
7.So the workman comforted the founder and he that smote with the hammer, him that smote by course, saying, It is ready for the sodering, & he fastened it with nails that it should not be moved.
8.¶ But thou, Israél, art my iservant, and thou Jaakób, whom I have chosen, the seed of Abrahám my friend.
9.For I have taken thee from the ends of the earth, and called thee before the chief thereof, and said unto thee, Thou art my servant: I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away.
10.Fear thou not, for I am with thee: be not afraid, for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee, and help thee, and will sustain thee with the kright hand of my justice.
11.Behold, all they that provoke thee, shalbe ashamed, and confounded: they shalbe as nothing, and they that strive with thee, shall perish.
12.Thou shalt seek them and shalt not lfind them: to wit, the men of thy strife, for they shalbe as nothing, and the men that war against thee, as a thing of naught.
13.For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not, I will help thee.
14.Fear not, thou mworm, Jaakób, and ye men of Israél: I will help thee, saith the Lord and thy redeemer the holie one of Israél.
15.Behold, I will make thee a roller, and a new threshing instrument having teeth: thou shalt thresh the nmountains, and bring them to powder, and shalt make the hills as chaff.
16.Thou shalt fanne them, and the wind shal carry them away, and the whirlwind shal scatter them: and thou shalt rejoyce in the Lord, and shalt glorie in the holy one of Israél.
17.When othe poor and the needy seek water, and there is none (their tongue faileth for thirst: I the Lord will hear them: I the God of Israél will not forsake them)
18.I will open rivers in the tops of the hills, and fountains in the middes of the valleis: I will make the wilderness as a pool of water, and the waste pland as springs of water.
19.I will set in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrre tree and the pine tree, and I will set in the wilderness the fyrre tree, the elm and the box tree together.
20.Therefore let them see and know, and let them consider and understand together that the hand of the Lord hath done this, and the holie one of Israél qhath created it.
21.rStand to your cause, saith the Lord: bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jaakób.
22.Let them bring them forth, and let them tell us what shall come: let them shewe the former things what they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them: either declare us things for to come.
23.Shewe the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods: yea, do good or do evil, that we may declare it, and behold it together.
24.Behold, ye are of no value, and your making is of naught: man hath schosen an abomination by them.
25.¶ I have raised up tfrom the North, and he shal come: from the East sun shal uhe call upon my Name, and shal come upon xprinces as upon clay, and as the potter treadeth mire under the foot.
26.Who hath declared from the beginning, that we may know? or before time, that we may say, He is righteous? Surely there is none that sheweth: surely there is none that declareth: surely there is none that heareth yyour words.
27.I am the first, that saith to Zión, Behold, behold zthem: and I will give to Jerusalém aone that shall bring good tidings.
28.But when bI beheld, there was none, and when I inquired of them, there was no counselour, and when I demanded of them, they answered not a word.
29.Behold, they are all vanity: their work is of nothing, their images are wind and confusion.

Notes

1-a.
God, as though he pleaded his cause with all nations, requires silence that he may be heard in his right.
1-b.
That is, gather all their power and supports.
2-c.
Who called Abraham (who was the pattern of God’s justice in delivering his Church) from the idolatry of the Chaldeans to go to and fro at his commandment, and placed him in the land of Canaan?
4-d.
Who has created man and maintained his succession.
4-e.
Though the world set up never so many gods, yet they diminish nothing of my glory, for I am all one, unchangeable, which have ever been, and shall be forever.
5-f.
Considering my excellent works among my people.
5-g.
They assembled themselves, and conspired against me, to maintain their idolatry.
6-h.
He notes the obstinacy of the idolaters to maintain their superstitions.
8-i.
And therefore ought not to pollute yourself with the superstition of the Gentiles.
10-k.
That is, by the force of my promise in the performance whereof I will show myself faithful and just.
12-l.
Because them shall be destroyed.
14-m.
Thus he called them because they were contemned of all the world, and that they considering their own poor estate, should seek unto him for help.
15-n.
I will make you able to destroy all your enemies, be they never so mighty and this chiefly is referred to the kingdom of Christ.
17-o.
That is, they that shall be afflicted in the captivity of Babylon.
18-p.
God will rather change the order of nature, then they should want any thing that cry to him by true faith in their miseries, declaring to them hereby that they shall lack nothing by the way, when they return from Babylon.
20-q.
That is, has appointed, and determined that it shall come so to pass.
21-r.
He bids the idolaters to prove their religion, and to bring forth their idols, that they may be tried whether they know all things, and can do all things which if they can not do, he concludes that they are no gods, but vile idols.
24-s.
So that a man can not make an idol, but he must do that, which God detests, and abhors for he chooses his own devices, and forsakes the Lord’s.
25-t.
Meaning, the Caldeans.
25-u.
That is, Cyrus, who shall do all thing in my Name, and by my direction whereby he means that both their captivity, and deliverance shall be ordered by God’s providence and appointment.
25-x.
Both of the Caldeans and others.
26-y.
Meaning, that none of the gentile’s gods can work any of these things.
27-a.
To wit, a continual succession of Prophets and ministers.
27-z.
That is, the Israelites, which return from captivity.
28-b.
When I looked whether the idols could do these things, I found that they had neither wisdom nor power to do any thing, therefore he concluded that all are wicked, that trust in such vanity.