Isaiah 43:15

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

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

43:14-21 The deliverance from Babylon is foretold, but there is reference to greater events. The redemption of sinners by Christ, the conversion of the Gentiles, and the recall of the Jews, are described. All that is to be done to rescue sinners, and to bring the believer to glory, is little, compared with that wondrous work of love, the redemption of man.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

I am the Lord - I am Yahweh - proved to be such, as the connection demands that we should interpret this, by sending to Babylon and bringing down your oppressors. This interposition in destroying Babylon would be a demonstration that he was Yahweh, the only true God, and their God.

The Creator of Israel - (See the note at Isaiah 43:1).

Your King - Ruling over you, and showing the right to do it by delivering you from your foes.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

15. creator of Israel—(Isa 43:1).

your—proved to be specially yours by delivering you.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Your Holy One; the Holy One of Israel, as he frequently styleth himself, who sanctify and glorify myself in this and such other glorious works, with respect to you, or for your benefit.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

I am the Lord, your Holy One,.... And therefore need not doubt of the performance of those promises:

the Creator of Israel, your King; and therefore both able and willing to protect them.

Geneva Study Bible

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

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 15. - The Creator of Israel. An unusual epithet; but comp. vers. 1, 7. Your King (see Judges 8:23; 1 Samuel 8:7; 1 Samuel 12:12; and comp. Isaiah 33:22; Isaiah 45:6). Isaiah 43:15

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

In close connection with the foregoing prophecy, the present one commences with the dissolution of the Chaldean empire. "Thus saith Jehovah, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, For your sake I have sent to Babel, and will hurl them all down as fugitives, and the Chaldeans into the ships of their rejoicing. I, Jehovah, am your Holy One; (I) Israel's Creator, your King." Hitzig reads באניות, and adopts the rendering, "and drowned the shouting of the Chaldeans in groaning." Ewald also corrects Isaiah 43:14 thus: "And plunge their guitars into groanings, and the rejoicing of the Chaldeans into sighs." We cannot see any good taste in this un-Hebraic bombast. Nor is there any more reason for altering ברייחם (lxx φεύγοντας) into ברייחם (Jerome, vectes), as Umbreit proposes: "and make all their bolts

(Note: This would require כּל־בּריחיה.)

fall down, and the Chaldeans, who rejoice in ships" (bāŏniyōth). None of these alterations effect any improvement. For your sakes, says Jehovah, i.e., for the purpose of releasing you, I have sent to Babylon (sc., the agents of my judgments, Isaiah 13:3), and will throw them all down (viz., the πάμιμκτος ὄχλος of this market of the world; see Isaiah 13:14; Isaiah 47:15) as fugitives (bârı̄chı̄m with a fixed kametz, equivalent to barrı̄chı̄m), i.e., into a hurried flight; and the Chaldeans, who have been settled there from a hoary antiquity, even they shall be driven into the ships of their rejoicing (bŏŏniyōth, as in Proverbs 31:14), i.e., the ships which were previously the object of their jubilant pride and their jubilant rejoicing. והורדתּי stands in the perf. consec., as indicating the object of all the means already set in motion. The ships of pleasure are not air-balloons, as Hitzig affirms. Herodotus (i. 194) describes the freight ships discharging in Babylon; and we know from other sources that the Chaldeans not only navigated the Euphrates, but the Persian Gulf as well, and employed vessels built by Phoenicians for warlike purposes also.

(Note: See G. Rawlinson, Monarchies, i. 128, ii.448.)

הוריד itself might indeed signify "to hurl to the ground" (Psalm 56:8; Psalm 59:12); but the allusion to ships shows that בּ הוריד are to be connected (cf., Isaiah 63:14), and that a general driving down both by land and water to the southern coast is intended. By thus sweeping away both foreigners and natives out of Babylon into the sea, Jehovah proves what He is in Himself, according to Isaiah 43:15, and also in His relation to Israel; we must supply a repetition of אני here (Isaiah 43:15), as in Isaiah 43:3. The congregation which addresses Him as the Holy One, the people who suffer Him to reign over them as their King, cannot remain permanently despised and enslaved.