Isaiah 63:5

Comp. ch. Isaiah 59:16. The verse explains why it is that Jehovah treads the winepress "alone" (Isaiah 63:3). The expectation that some human helper would appear on the side of Jehovah is more remarkable here than in ch. Isaiah 59:16, where the judgement was on Israel itself, and the complaint might be that even within the chosen nation no champion of righteousness could be found. The idea that such a champion might have been found amongst heathen nations is of course much less easily explained; unless, with Duhm, we suppose that the prophet is sadly contrasting his own age with the more hopeful time of the Second Isaiah, when the faith of Israel was directed to Cyrus as the agent of Jehovah's purposes on earth.