Isaiah 40:21-24 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Have ye not known Jehovah to be the only true God, the Maker and Governor of the world, and all its inhabitants? How can ye be ignorant of so evident a truth? He addresses his speech to the idolatrous Gentiles; from the beginning Namely, of the world, as the next clause explains it: were not these infinite perfections of God manifestly discovered to all mankind, by the creation of the world? It is he that sitteth As a judge or governor upon his throne; upon, or rather, above, the circle of the earth Far above this round earth, even in the highest heavens; from whence he looketh down upon the earth, where men appear to him like grasshoppers. As here we have the circle of the earth, so elsewhere we read of the circle of heaven, Job 22:14, and of the circle of the deep, or sea, Proverbs 8:27, because the form of the heaven, and earth, and sea, is circular. Spreadeth them out as a tent For the benefit of the earth and of mankind, that all parts might partake of their comfortable influences. That bringeth the princes to nothing Who can, at his pleasure, destroy all the great potentates of the world. Yea, they The princes and judges last mentioned; shall not be planted, &c. They shall take no root, for planting and sowing are in order to taking root. They shall not continue and flourish, as they have vainly imagined, but shall be rooted up, and perish.