Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on Isaiah 55:3
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Commentary on the Old Testament
C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
And in this way it is possible to obtain not only the satisfaction of absolute need, but a superabundant enjoyment, and an overflowing fulfilment of the promise. "Incline your ear, and come to me: hear, and let your soul revive; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, the true mercies of David. Behold, I have set him as a witness for nations, a prince and commander of nations. Behold, thou wilt call a mass of people that thou knowest not; and a mass of people that knoweth thee not will hasten to thee, for the sake of Jehovah thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel, that He hath made thee glorious." The expression "make a covenant" (kârath berı̄th) is not always applied to a superior in relation to an inferior (compare, on the contrary, Ezr 10:3); but here the double-sided idea implied in pactio is confined to one side alone, in the sense of a spontaneous sponsio having all the force of a covenant ( Isa 61:8; compare Ch2 7:18, where kârath by itself signifies "to promise with the force of a covenant"), and also of the offer of a covenant or anticipated conclusion of a covenant, as in Eze 34:25, and in the case before us, where "the true mercies of David" are attached to the idea of offering or granting involved in the expression, "I will make an everlasting covenant with you," as a more precise definition of the object. All that is required on the part of Israel is hearing, and coming, and taking: let it do this, and it will be pervaded by new life; and Jehovah will meet with with an everlasting covenant, viz., the unchangeable mercies of David. Our interpretation of this must be dependent chiefly upon whether Isa 55:4 is regarded as looking back to the history of David, or looking forward to something future. In the latter case we are either to understand by "David" the second David (according to Hos 3:5; Jer 30:9; Eze 34:24), so that the allusion is to the mercies granted in the Messiah, and according to Isa 9:7, enduring "from henceforth even for ever;" or else David is the son of Jesse, and "the mercies of David" are the mercies bestowed upon him, which are called "the true mercies" as mercies promised and running into the future ( Psa 89:50; Ch2 6:42), in which case Isa 55:4 explains what David will become in the person of his antitype the second David. The directly Messianic application of the name "David" is to be objected to, on the ground that the Messiah is never so called without further remark; whilst the following objections may be adduced to the indirectly Messianic interpretation of Isa 55:4 (David in the Messiah). (1.) The change of the tense in Isa 55:4, Isa 55:5, which requires that we should assume that Isa 55:4 points backwards into the past, and Isa 55:5 forwards into the future. (Note: F. Philippi observes that הן, which refers to the future in Isa 55:5 at any rate, must be taken as referring to the same sphere of time as that which immediately precedes. But hēn in Isaiah points sometimes backwards ( Isa 50:1; Isa 64:4), sometimes forwards; and where two follow one another, of which the one points backwards and the other forwards, the former is followed by the perfect, the latter by the future ( Isa 50:1-2). But if they both point to the future, the future tense is used in both instances ( Isa 50:9). A better argument in favour of the prophetic interpretation of Isa 55:4 might be drawn from the fact that נתתּי הן may mean "I give (set, lay, or make) even now" (e.g., Jer 1:9). But what we have said ab…
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