Isaiah 8:16 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

Bind up the testimony... — The intensity of feeling in which the prophetic utterance of Isaiah 8:11-15 had its birth, is followed by a corresponding solemnity at its close. The words which had been so full of meaning for the prophet himself are to be impressed on the disciples of Jehovah (for it is He who speaks), i.e., on those who looked to Isaiah as their guide and counsellor. They are to be written on a parchment roll, as men wrote the sacred Book of the Law; the roll is to be sealed up, partly as a security against its being tampered with, till the time came for its disclosure (Daniel 12:4), partly as an attestation, like the seal of a king’s letter (1 Kings 21:8; Esther 3:12), that it was authentic. The two terms “testimony” (Deuteronomy 8:19; Psalms 50:7; Psalms 119:2) and “law” are here taken in their wider sense as applicable to any revelation of the mind of God. The “law of the Lord” of Psalms 19:7; Psalms 119:1 was wider and higher than the Pentateuchal code.