Isaiah 41:21

Produce your cause, saith the LORD; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob. PRODUCE YOUR CAUSE, SAITH THE LORD - A new challenge to the idolaters (see ; ) to say, can their idols predict future events as Yahweh can? (Isaiah 41:22, etc.) BRING FORTH YOUR STRONG REASONS - the reasons for idol-worship which you think especially strong....

21._Plead your cause. _There was also a necessity that this should be added to the former doctrine; for when we associate with wicked men, they pour ridicule on our hope and charge us with folly, as if we were too simple-minded and credulous. Our faith is attacked and frequently shaken by jeers such as the following, “These people hang on the clouds, and believe things that are impossible and contrary to all reason.” Since, therefore, the Jews, in their captivity, would hear such mockeries, it was of importance that they should be fortified by these warnings of the Prophet; and in order to give greater weight to this address, he comes forth of his own accord, for the sake of inspiring confidence, and challenges the Gentiles themselves, charging them to bring forward everything that could support their cause, as is usually done in courts of justice. _Saith the king of Jacob. _When he call...

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 nothing. Let the advocates of other doctrines than that of salvation through Christ, bring their arguments. Can they tell of a cure for human depravity? Jehovah has power which cannot be withstood; this he will make appear. But the certain knowledge of the future must be only with Jehovah, who fulfils his own plans. All prophecies, except those of the Bible, have been uncertain. In the work of redemption the Lord showed himself much more than in the release of the Jews from Babylon. The good tidings the Lord will send in the gospel, is a mystery hid from ages and generations. A Deliverer is raised up for us, of nobler name and greater power than the deliverer of the captive Jews. May we be nu...

Verse Isaiah 41:21. _BRING FORTH YOUR STRONG REASONS _- "Produce these your mighty powers"] "Let your idols come forward which you consider to be so very strong." _Hieron_. in loc. I prefer this to all other interpretations of this place; and to _Jerome's_ own translation of it, which he adds immediately after, Afferte, si quid forte habetis. "Bring it forward, if haply ye have any thing." The false gods are called upon to come forth and appear in person; and to give evident demonstration of their foreknowledge and power by foretelling future events, and exerting their power in doing good or evil....

PRODUCE YOUR CAUSE - This address is made to the same persons who are referred to in Isaiah 41:1 - the worshippers of idols; and the prophet here returns to the subject with reference to a further argument on the comparative power of Yahweh and idols. In the former part of the chapter, God had urged his claims to confidence from the fact that he had raised up Cyrus; that the idols were weak and feeble compared with him; and from the fact that it was his fixed purpose to defend his people, and to meet and refresh them when faint and weary. In the verses which follow Isaiah 41:21, he urges his claims to confidence from the fact that he alone was able to predict future events, and calls on the worshippers of idols to show their claims in the same manner. This is the ‘cause’ which is

SECTION II.—RECOVERY OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD FROM THEIR SIN, AND FROM THEIR BONDAGE IN BABYLON (CH. 41-48.). EXPOSITION ISAIAH 41:1 ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE DELIVERER, AND EFFECT ON THE SURROUNDING NATIONS. Isaiah returns to the standpoint of Isaiah 40:9. A deliverer of Israel is about to appear. The nat

PRODUCE YOUR CAUSE, SAITH THE LORD,.... The Lord having comforted his people under their afflictions and persecutions from their enemies in the first times of Christianity, returns to the controversy between him and the idolatrous Heathens, and challenges them to bring their cause into open court, and let it be publicly tried, that it may be seen on what side truth lies: BRING FORTH YOUR STRONG REASONS, SAITH THE KING OF JACOB; or King of saints, the true Israel of God, who acknowledge the Lord as their King and their God, and whom he rules over, protects and defends; and this title is assumed for the comfort of them, that though he is King over all the nations of the world, yet in an eminent and peculiar sense their King; and he does not style himself the God of Jacob, though he was, because this was the thing in controversy, and the cause to be decided, whether he was the true God, or...

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 Cyrus (Isaiah 41:5)_ 4. _Israel as Jehovah's servant (Isaiah 41:8)_ 5. _The message of comfort and assurance of restoration (Isaiah 41:9)_ 6. _Jehovah's second challenge: He alone can declare things to come (Isaiah 41:21)_ 7. The future t

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 gone by they have foreseen the antecedents of present developments, or explain the events now happening and about to happen. They remain dumb, and Yahweh taunts them with their impotence. He has raised up Cyrus; who among them had foreseen the event? Not one; how patent, then, their nothingness! ISAIAH 41:22. LATTER END: issue. THINGS FOR TO COME: THE immediate development from the present situation. Isaiah 41:23. be dismayed: rather (_cf. mg._), open our eyes in wonder. Isaiah 41:2

SAITH THE LORD. See note on Isaiah 1:11. STRONG. strong (for weight or importance). Hebrew. _azam_ Not same word as in verses: Isaiah 41:1; Isaiah 41:10. Hebrew. _'amaz._ THE KING OF JACOB. This title occurs only here. Heathen kings were the gods of their people. So Jehovah, the King of Jacob, was the God of Israel....