Isaiah 42:14-17 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

I have long time holden my peace— These words contain a declaration of the divine counsel; wherein God teacheth, that, by calling the Gentiles to his communion, he should effect a great change in the world; so that its whole oeconomy should, receive a new and different form. The whole discourse is metaphorical. We have in it, first, the divine counsel concerning the future time, declared by way of opposition; wherein the prophet, continuing the metaphor of the 13th verse, introduces God as a hero, who, after having contained himself a long time like a woman with child, at length, overcome by the love of his honour, aroused with great zeal, breaks silence, pants like a woman in labour, and at the same time exhales and resorbs his breath, as people do who are in great eagerness and agitation: whereby the prophet means to express nothing more than the great zeal of God, to vindicate his glory, and deliver his people. The prophet, secondly, explains the work itself, determined by the divine counsel, Isaiah 42:15-16 which express the destruction and desolation to be brought upon idols, and idolatrous states, and the blessings of the divine illumination by the Gospel: and, thirdly, we have in the 17th verse the consequence of the execution of the divine counsel, which should be the entire conversion of the Gentile world, after having beheld the triumphs of grace. See Vitringa.