Isaiah 43:14-21 - Arthur Peake's Commentary on the Bible

Reader Related Verse
Bible Comments

Yahweh will Work for His People a Deliverance more Wonderful than the Exodus.

Isaiah 43:14 is too corrupt to be translated with confidence. RV understands it to refer to a flight by water of the Babylonians from their fallen city. Yahweh recalls His people's passage through the Red Sea, when He overwhelmed the Egyptians. So much more wonderful will be His new achievement that it will be quoted instead of the Exodus as the supreme evidence of His redeeming power. He will make a road for the exiles through the wilderness, and cause rivers to spring forth in the arid desert; the wild creatures of the wilderness shall praise Him in gratitude.

Isaiah 43:15. Omit am.

Isaiah 43:16. Something has been lost after Lord.

Isaiah 43:17. Translate, Army and warriors together. They lie down and cannot rise.

Isaiah 43:19. Translate, I am doing. it is springing. do ye not perceive it?

Isaiah 43:20 b, Isaiah 43:21. A late gloss; notice the change from the 2nd to the 3rd person.

Related Commentaries of Isaiah 43:14

Isaiah 43:14-21

14 Thus saith the LORD, your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; For your sake I have sent to Babylon, and have brought down all their nobles,c and the Chaldeans, whose cry is in the ships.

15 I am the LORD, your Holy One, the creator of Israel, your King.

16 Thus saith the LORD, which maketh a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters;

17 Which bringeth forth the chariot and horse, the army and the power; they shall lie down together, they shall not rise: they are extinct, they are quenched as tow.

18 Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old.

19 Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.

20 The beast of the field shall honour me, the dragons and the owls:d because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen.

21 This people have I formed for myself; they shall shew forth my praise.