Isaiah 33:10

Now will I rise, saith the LORD; now will I be exalted; now will I lift up myself.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(10) Now will I rise . . .—We note the emphatic iteration of the adverb of time. Man’s necessity was, as ever, to be God’s opportunity. He had been, as it were, waiting for this crisis, and would at once arise in His might.

Benson Commentary

Isaiah 33:10-13. Now will I rise — In this extremity I will appear on the behalf of my people and land. Ye shall bring forth stubble — Instead of solid corn. Your great hopes and designs, O ye Assyrians, shall be utterly disappointed. Your breath, as fire, shall devour you — Your rage against my people shall bring ruin upon yourselves. Or, the arrogance, pride, wrath, and blasphemies which you vent against God shall be your destruction. Dr. Waterland renders the clause, “Your breath shall be the fire that shall consume you.” The people shall be as the burnings of lime — Shall be perfectly consumed, as when chalk-stones are reduced to lime; calcining, or reducing to ashes, being one of the last effects of fire. Thus we learn from this period, that when the calamity of the people, as well as the insolence of their enemies, should be come to the height, God would delay no longer, but immediately interpose and severely punish the oppressors, and thereby exalt his glory before the eyes of the nations, whom he calls upon, in the next words, to consider his doings. Hear, ye afar off, &c. — So remarkable a judgment as this deserves to be known, and laid to heart, by all men, both far and near.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

33:1-14 Here we have the proud and false destroyer justly reckoned with for all his fraud and violence. The righteous God often pays sinners in their own coin. Those who by faith humbly wait for God, shall find him gracious to them; as the day, so let the strength be. If God leaves us to ourselves any morning, we are undone; we must every morning commit ourselves to him, and go forth in his strength to do the work of the day. When God arises, his enemies are scattered. True wisdom and knowledge lead to strength of salvation, which renders us stedfast in the ways of God; and true piety is the only treasure which can never be plundered or spent. The distress Jerusalem was brought into, is described. God's time to appear for his people, is, when all other helpers fail. Let all who hear what God has done, acknowledge that he can do every thing. Sinners in Zion will have much to answer for, above other sinners. And those that rebel against the commands of the word, cannot take its comforts in time of need. His wrath will burn those everlastingly who make themselves fuel for it. It is a fire that shall never be quenched, nor ever go out of itself; it is the wrath of an ever-living God preying on the conscience of a never-dying soul.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Now - This verse commences another transition. In the previous verses, the desolation of the land had been described, and the hopelessness of obtaining any terms of favor from Sennacherib, or of binding him to any compact, bad been stated. In this state of things, when inevitable ruin seemed to be coming upon the nation, God said that he would interpose.

Will I rise - To vengeance; or to punish the invading host. The emphasis in this passage should be placed on 'I,' indicating that Yahweh would himself do what could not be effected by people.

Now will I be exalted - That is, God would so interpose that it should be manifest that it was his hand that brought deliverance.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

10. The sight of His people's misery arouses Jehovah; He has let the enemy go far enough.

I—emphatic; God Himself will do what man could not.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

In this extremity, I will appear on the behalf of my people and land.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Now will I rise, saith the Lord,.... At the last extremity, when things are come to a crisis; his interest at the lowest, and the kingdom of antichrist at its highest pitch; the whore of Rome triumphing over the slain witnesses, and boasting she was a queen, and knew no sorrow: this will be God's fit time to exert himself, and get him honour and glory: he before was as one lain down and asleep, as if quite negligent and careless about his honour and interest; but now he determines to arise, and show himself strong on the behalf of it; see Psalm 12:5,

now will I be exalted; that is, in his power, by the destruction of the enemies of his church; and in the hearts and mouths of his people, on account of their deliverance and salvation:

now will I lift up myself; show himself above his enemies, higher and greater than they, and reduce them to a low estate and condition. The repetition of the word "now" has its emphasis; and is designed to observe the time of God's appearing in the cause of his people, and the fitness and propriety of it; and to quicken their attention to it, as well as to express the certainty of it, and the firmness of his resolution to do it without delay, and the vehemence and ardour with which he would set about it.

Geneva Study Bible

Now will I {p} rise, saith the LORD; now will I be exalted; now will I lift up myself.

(p) To help and deliver my Church.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

10–13. Jehovah’s answer to the complaint and prayer of His people.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 10. - Now will I rise. Judah's extremity is Jehovah's opportunity. "Now" at length the time is come for God to show himself, tic will rise from his throne, and actively display his power; he will exalt himself above the heathen - lift himself up above the nations. Isaiah 33:10

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The prophet has thus run through the whole train of thought with a few rapid strides, in accordance with the custom which we have already frequently noticed; and now he commences afresh, mourning over the present miserable condition of things, in psalm-like elegiac tones, and weeping with his weeping people. "Behold, their heroes weep without; the messengers of peace weep bitterly. Desolate are roads, disappeared are travellers; he has broken covenant, insulted cities, despised men. The land mourns, languishes; Lebanon stands ashamed, parched; the meadow of Sharon has become like a steppe, and Bashan and Carmel shake their leaves." אראלּם is probably chosen with some allusion to 'Ariel, the name of Jerusalem in chapter 29; but it has a totally different meaning. We have rendered it "heroes," because אראל is here synonymous with אראל in the Nibelung-like piece contained in 2 Samuel 23:20 and 1 Chronicles 11:22. This 'ărı̄'ēl, which is here contracted into 'er'el (compare the biblical name 'Ar'ēlı̄ and the post-biblical name of the angels, 'Er'ellı̄m), is compounded of 'arı̄ (a lion) and ‛El (God), and therefore signifies "the lion of God," but in this sense, that El (God) gives to the idea of leonine courage merely the additional force of extraordinary or wonderful; and as a composite word, it contents itself with a singular, with a collective sense according to circumstances, without forming any plural at all. The dagesh is to be explained from the fact that the word (which tradition has erroneously regarded as a compound of להם אראה) is pointed in accordance with the form כּרמל (כרמלּו). The heroes intended by the prophet were the messengers sent to Sennacherib to treat with him for peace. They carried to him the amount of silver and gold which he had demanded as the condition of peace (2 Kings 18:14). But Sennacherib broke the treaty, by demanding nothing less than the surrender of Jerusalem itself. Then the heroes of Jerusalem cried aloud, when they arrived at Jerusalem, and had to convey this message of disgrace and alarm to the king and nation; and bitterly weeping over such a breach of faith, such deception and disgrace, the embassy, which had been sent off, to the deep self-humiliation of Judah and themselves, returned to Jerusalem. Moreover, Sennacherib continued to storm the fortified places, in violation of his agreement (on mâ'as ‛arı̄m, see 2 Kings 18:13). The land was more and more laid waste, the fields were trodden down; and the autumnal aspect of Lebanon, with its faded foliage, and of Bashan and Carmel, with their falling leaves, looked like shame and grief at the calamities of the land. It was in the autumn, therefore, that the prophet uttered these complaints; and the definition of the time given in his prophecy (Isaiah 32:10) coincides with this. קמל is the pausal form for קמל, just as in other places an ē with the tone, which has sprung from i, easily passes into a in pause; the sharpening of the syllable being preferred to the lengthening of it, not only when the syllable which precedes the tone syllable is an open one, but sometimes even when it is closed (e.g., Judges 6:19, ויּגּשׁ). Instead of כּערבה we should read כּערבה (without the article), as certain codd. and early editions do.

(Note: We find the same in Zechariah 14:10, and כּערבים in Isaiah 44:4, whereas we invariably have בּערבה (see Michlol, 45b), just as we always find בּאבנים, and on the other hand כּבנים.)

Isaiah having mourned in the tone of the Psalms, now comforts himself with the words of a psalm. Like David in Psalm 12:6, he hears Jehovah speak. The measure of Asshur's iniquity is full; the hour of Judah's redemption is come; Jehovah has looked on long enough, as though sitting still (Isaiah 18:4). Isaiah 33:10 "Now will I arise, saith Jehovah, now exalt myself, now lift up myself." Three times does the prophet repeat the word ‛attâh (now), which is so significant a word with all the prophets, but more especially with Hosea and Isaiah, and which always fixes the boundary-line and turning-point between love and wrath, wrath and love. ארומם (in half pause for ארוממא is contracted from עתרומם (Ges. 54, 2, b). Jehovah would rise up from His throne, and show Himself in all His greatness to the enemies of Israel.