Wesley's Explanatory Notes
Isaiah 41:24
Your work — Your operations are like your beings: there is no reality in your beings, nor efficacy in your actions.
Your work — Your operations are like your beings: there is no reality in your beings, nor efficacy in your actions.
Verse Isaiah 41:24. _YOUR WORK OF NAUGHT_ - "Your operation is less than naught"] For מאפע _meepha_, read מאפס _meephes_; so the _Chaldee_ and _Vulgate_. A manifest error of the text; compare Isaiah...
BEHOLD, YE ARE OF NOTHING - Margin, ‘Worse than nothing.’ This refers to idols; and the idea is, that they were utterly vain and powerless; they were as unable to render aid to their worshippers as ab...
CHAPTER 41 Jehovah's Challenge 1. _The address to the islands and the peoples (Isaiah 41:1)_ 2. _Jehovah's question, Cyrus and his ways predicted (Isaiah 41:2)_ 3. Nations troubled on account of Cyru...
YAHWEH'S CHALLENGE TO THE GODS OF THE NATIONS. The nations are bidden to produce their case and bring forward their champions their idols (so emend strong reasons). Let the idols show that in days gon...
The silence of the idols settles the controversy. _of nothing … of nought_ See on ch. Isaiah 40:17. The word _"épha-_here is probably a copyist's error for _"épheṣ_. he that _chooseth you_ your wors...
The argument of Isaiah 41:1 is resumed, but now the idols (Isaiah 41:23), not their worshippers, are addressed. Foreknowledge is the test of divinity. Can the idols produce any instance whatever of th...
LET THEM BRING THEM FORTH— God, teaching his people the right method of disputing against idolaters, draws an argument, and urges it strongly, from the certain prediction of future contingencies of gr...
d. GOOD TIDINGS TEXT: Isaiah 41:21-29 21 Produce your cause, saith Jehovah; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob. 22 Let them bring them forth, and declare unto us what shall...
Behold, ye are of nothing, and your work of nought: an abomination is he that chooseth you. YE ARE OF NOTHING - (note, Isaiah 40:17.) AND YOUR WORK OF NOUGHT. The Hebrew text [ mee'aapa` (H659),...
41:24 work (c-9) _ Poal_ ; as ch. 5.12....
The case is summed up against them....
CYRUS GOD'S AGENT 1-7. Jehovah and the gods of the heathen compared as in a court of judgment. Jehovah has raised up Cyrus and given him victory, in order to carry out His good purposes, while the he...
ISAIAH: GOD CONTROLS THE NATIONS GOD PROMISES COMFORT TO HIS PEOPLE ISAIAH CHAPTER S 40 TO 48 _NORMAN HILLYER_ CHAPTER 41 KNOW WHO REALLY CONTROLS EVENTS V1 God speaks: ‘You people in distant...
No *idols can announce what is going to happen. That is something that only the *Lord God can do. • See my note on Isaiah 44:9-20. LORD ~ God’s personal name in the Bible. In the original language, G...
BEHOLD, YE ARE OF NOTHING. — This is _the_ summing up of the prophet, speaking as in the Judge’s name. The idol was “nothing in the world” (1 Corinthians 8:4). The demonic view of the gods of the heat...
הֵן ־אַתֶּ֣ם מֵ אַ֔יִן וּ פָעָלְכֶ֖ם מֵ
CHAPTER I THE DATE OF Isaiah 40:1; Isaiah 41:1; Isaiah 42:1; Isaiah 43:1;...
WHAT THE LORD'S HAND DOES FOR THE NEEDY Isaiah 41:17-29 Life is not easy for any of us, if we regard external conditions only; but directly we learn the divine secret, rivers flow from bare heights,...
Having thus announced the majesty of Jehovah, the prophet proceeds to utter his general manifesto. This occupies Chapter s forty-one and forty-two. In chapter forty-one Jehovah challenges the island a...
Behold, ye [are] of nothing, and your work of naught: an abomination [is he that] (s) chooseth you. (s) So that a man cannot make an idol, without doing that which God detests and abhors for he choos...
_Work. All that you can do or promise. Hebrew, "your work is worse than a viper."_...
Here is a solemn and unanswerable appeal to the despisers of God and his Christ, to show cause wherefore such mercy; as is in the covenant of redemption, is slighted? What the Apostle closeth one of h...
24._Lo, ye are of nothing. _He now mocks at idols, in order to confirm the godly in the belief and worship of one God, when by the comparison they see that those who worship idols are miserably deceiv...
THE FOLLOWING COMMENTARY COVERS CHAPTER S 41, 42, AND 43. Chapter 41 begins the historical details which prove this. Who raised up Cyrus to overthrow idolatry? But in the midst of the havoc he made of...
BEHOLD, YE ARE OF NOTHING,.... Not as to the matter of them, for they were made of gold, silver, brass, c. but as to the divinity of them: there was none in them, they were of no worth and value they...
Behold, ye [are] of nothing, and your work of nought: an abomination [is he that] chooseth you. Ver. 24. _Behold, ye are of nothing._] Hence Paul took that assertion of his; 1Co 8:4 "we know that an...
_Produce your cause_ He renews his challenge to the idolaters to plead the cause of their idols, and give convincing proof of their divinity: see on Isaiah 41:1. _Bring forth your strong reasons_ Hebr...
Behold, ye are of nothing, and your work of naught; an abomination is he that chooseth you, such is the conclusion which one is bound to reach from the premises presented: the idolater like his idol u...
THE COMING OF THE DELIVERER...
OF NOTHING: Or, worse than nothing OF NAUGHT: Or, worse then of a viper...
21-29 There needs no more to show the folly of sin, than to bring to notice the reasons given in defence of it. There is nothing in idols worthy of regard. They are less than nothing, and worse than...
YE ARE OF NOTHING; you lately were nothing, without any being at all, and now you have nothing at all of divinity or virtue in you. YOUR WORK; either, 1. Passively, your workmanship, all the cost and...
Isaiah 41:24 nothing H369 work H6467 nothing H659 chooses H977 (H8799) abomination H8441 ye are -...
YAHWEH'S CHALLENGE TO THE GODS OF THE NATIONS (ISAIAH 41:21). Isaiah 41:21 “Produce your cause,” says Yahweh. “Bring forth your strong reasons,” says the King of Jacob. “Let them bring them forth...
CONTENTS: Greatness of God and weakness of man. Admonition to shun idols and encouragement to trust in God. CHARACTERS: God, Christ, Jacob. CONCLUSION: Jehovah is infinite, eternal and unchangeable....
Isaiah 41:1. _Keep silence before me, oh islands._ Commentators here refer us to the time of our Saviour's birth, for the isles of Chittim designate the Roman power. In the Augustan age, the temple of...
ISAIAH—NOTE ON ISAIAH 41:21 God challenges the false claims of human idols. ⇐ ⇔...
SECTION II.—RECOVERY OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD FROM THEIR SIN, AND FROM THEIR BONDAGE IN BABYLON (CH. 41-48.). EXPOSITION...
In the forty-first chapter of Isaiah in the first part of the chapter, God begins His predictions concerning Cyrus who was not yet born. A man who was not to be born for a hundred and fifty years. But...
1 Corinthians 8:4; Deuteronomy 27:15; Deuteronomy 7:26; Isaiah 41:29;...