Commentary on Isaiah Volume 2 John Calvin (continued)
JOHN CALVIN
26. Tollite in sublime oculos vestros, et aspicite quis creaverit ea producens ad numerum exercitum eorum; omnibus nominatim acclamabit; a magnitudine virium et robore fortitudinis nullum deficiet (vel, deerit).
27. Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God?
27. Quare dices, Iacob, et loqueris Israel? Abscondita est via mea ab Iehova, eta Deo meo judicium meum transit.
28. Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.
28. An non scivisti? An non audiisti (quod) Deus seculi sit Iehova, qui fines terrae creavit? Non laborat, nec lassitudine fatigatur; et non est investigatio intelligentiae ejus.
29. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.
29. Dot lasso virtutem, et cui nihil est virium robur suppeditat. 30. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:
30. Fatigantur adolescentes et lassantur; juvenes cadendo cadunt. 31. But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
31. At expectantes Iehovam vires novas colligent; sustollent alas ut aquibe; current, nec fatigabuntur; ambulabunt, nec deficient.
1. Comfort ye. The Prophet introduces a new subject; for, leaving the people on whom no favorable impression was made either by threatenings or by admonitions, on account of their desperate wickedness, he turns to posterity, in order to declare that the people who shall be humbled under the cross will experience no want of consolation even amidst the severest distresses. And it is probable that he wrote this prophecy when the time of the captivity was at hand, that he might not at his departure from life leave the Church of God overwhehned by very grievous calamities, without the hope of restoration. Though he formerly mingled his predictions with threatenings and terrors for this purpose, yet he appears to have contemplated chiefly the benefit of those who lived at that time. What will afterwards follow will relate to the future Church, the revival of which was effected long after his death; for he will next lay down a perpetual doctrine, which must not be limited to a single period, and especially when he treats of the commencement and progress of the reign of Christ. And this prophecy must be of so much the greater importance to us, because it addresses us in direct terms; for, although it may be a spiritual application of what goes before, so as to be doctrine that is common both to the Jews and to us, yet, as he leaves the Jews of that age, and addresses posterity down to the end of the world, it