Thus saith the Lord, who redeemed Abraham. — The words gain in vividness if we think of them as referring to the Jewish tradition that Abraham had been accused by his kinsmen before Nimrod for not worshipping the host of heaven. That history was for the prophet the assurance that Jehovah would not abandon him to his accusers.

Jacob shall not now be ashamed... — The patriarch appears, as Rachel does in Jeremiah 31:15, as if watching over the fortunes of his descendants with varying emotions. Those emotions had been of shame and terror; now there was the dawning of a brighter day.

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