Isaiah 43:11-13 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

I, even I, am the Lord, &c.— I even I, &c. Isaiah 43:12. I have declared and saved, and foreshewed, and not any strange god among you [hath done so]; therefore, &c. The argument of this whole discourse is so consistent in all its parts, that nothing heterogeneous is mixed with it. God is here introduced, as in the discourses immediately following, determined to vindicate the truth of his essence and divinity against idolaters and unbelievers, and to call them from error, superstition, and the worship of false deities, to the true faith, and to confirm believers in the same faith. Hence he commands the idolatrous and incredulous Jews, and all the nations, to be convoked, as it were, to a public disputation, and teaches his people the method of disputing with, and convicting them, from the great works already done, and hereafter to be done, as foretold only by him. But, as among those great works were the temporal deliverances which he had already wrought for his church according to the predictions of his prophets, and would hereafter perform by Cyrus, and the spiritual deliverance which he would procure for his people by the Messiah, the effect whereof would be the conversion of the Gentiles; he particularly appeals to these illustrious works of his providence, grace, and power, and evinces that they are to be ascribed only to him, as they were foretold only by him. See the analysis. This period treats, in my opinion, says Vitringa, concerning the deliverance of the people from the Assyrian, and stands here, by way of preface, to illustrate that other great deliverance of the church from the Chaldees. God is here represented, as shewing himself publicly in a great assembly of men, and vindicating to himself the glory taken from him by idolaters and unbelievers, which alone belongs to God, before whom all creatures must keep silence, and who alone, as the fountain of all perfection and honour, can be allowed to glory of himself.