12 For not in haste do ye go out, Yea, with flight ye go not on, For going before you `is' Jehovah, And gathering you `is' the God of Israel!
Then broken up as the dawn is thy light, And thy health in haste springeth up, Gone before thee hath thy righteousness, The honour of Jehovah doth gather thee.
`I go before thee, and crooked places make straight, Two-leaved doors of brass I shiver, And bars of iron I cut asunder,
`And thus ye do eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand, and ye have eaten it in haste; it is Jehovah's passover,
And the Egyptians are urgent on the people, hasting to send them away out of the land, for they said, `We are all dead;'
and Jehovah is going before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them in the way, and by night in a pillar of fire, to give light to them, to go by day and by night; He removeth not the pillar of the cloud by day, and the pillar of the fire by night, `from' before the people.
And the messenger of God, who is going before the camp of Israel, journeyeth and goeth at their rear; and the pillar of the cloud journeyeth from their front, and standeth at their rear, and cometh in between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel, and the cloud and the darkness are, and he enlighteneth the night, and the one hath not drawn near unto the other all the night.
and Jehovah strengtheneth the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he pursueth after the sons of Israel, and the sons of Israel are going out with a high hand,
And Deborah saith unto Barak, `Rise, for this `is' the day in which Jehovah hath given Sisera into thy hand; hath not Jehovah gone out before thee?' And Barak goeth down from mount Tabor, and ten thousand men after him.
Therefore, thus said the Lord Jehovah: `Lo, I am laying a foundation in Zion, A stone -- a tried stone, a corner stone precious, a settled foundation, He who is believing doth not make haste.
Hastened hath a wanderer to be loosed, And he doth not die at the pit, And his bread is not lacking.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Isaiah 52
Commentary on Isaiah 52 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 52
The greater part of this chapter is on the same subject with the chapter before, concerning the deliverance of the Jews out of Babylon, which yet is applicable to the great salvation Christ has wrought out for us; but the last three verses are on the same subject with the following chapter, concerning the person of the Redeemer, his humiliation and exaltation. Observe,
Isa 52:1-6
Here,
Isa 52:7-12
The removal of the Jews from Babylon to their own land again is here spoken of both as a mercy and as a duty; and the application of v. 7 to the preaching of the gospel (by the apostle, Rom. 10:15) plainly intimates that that deliverance was a type and figure of the redemption of mankind by Jesus Christ, to which what is here said of their redemption out of Babylon ought to be accommodated.
Isa 52:13-15
Here, as in other places, for the confirming of the faith of God's people and the encouraging of their hope in the promises of temporal deliverances, the prophet passes from them to speak of the great salvation which should in the fulness of time be wrought out by the Messiah. As the prophecy of Christ's incarnation was intended for the ratification of the promise of their deliverance from the Assyrian army, so this of Christ's death and resurrection is to confirm the promise of their return out of Babylon; for both these salvations were typical of the great redemption and the prophecies of them had a reference to that. This prophecy, which begins here and is continued to the end of the next chapter, points as plainly as can be at Jesus Christ; the ancient Jews understood it of the Messiah, though the modern Jews take a great deal of pains to pervert it, and some of ours (no friends therein to the Christian religion) will have it understood of Jeremiah; but Philip, who hence preached Christ to the eunuch, has put it past dispute that of him speaks the prophet this, of him and of no other man, Acts 8:34, 35. Here,