Isaiah 40:15

Isa. 40:15. "He taketh up the isles as a very little thing." A very fine remark, and a solid correction of the common translation, is here made by that learned, sagacious, and devout expositor, Vitringa. He observes that the common translation is neither answerable to the import of the original, nor consonant to the structure of the discourse. The prophet had no intention to inform mankind what the Almighty could do with regard to the islands, if he pleased to exert his power, but his design was to show how insignificant, or rather what mere nothings, they are in his esteem, and before his majesty. The islands, says he, though so spacious as to afford room for the erection of kingdoms and the abode of nations, though so strong as to withstand for many thousands of years the raging and reiterated assaults of the whole watery world, are yet before the adored Jehovah small as the minutest grain, which the eye can scarce discern, light as the feathered mote, which the least breath hurries away like a tempest, Insulae sunt, ut levi quid, quod avolat. "The deep-rooted islands are as the volatile atom, which, by the gentlest undulations of the air, is wafted to and fro in perpetual agitations." Hervey's Meditations, vol. 2. p. 130.

Isa. 41:8