Bible Commentaries

Isaiah 41:2-3, Isaiah 41:25; Isaiah 44:28; Isaiah 45:1-4, Isaiah 45:13; Isaiah 46:11; Isaiah 48:14-15). This section abounds with arguments against idolatry, founded mainly (not wholly, see the noble passage Isaiah 44:9-20) upon the gift of prediction possessed by Jehovah's prophets, especially as shown by their predicting Cyrus, and even naming him ( Isaiah 41:26; Isaiah 44:8, Isaiah 44:24-26; Isaiah 45:4, Isaiah 45:19, Isaiah 45:21; Isaiah 46:8-11; Isaiah 48:3-8, Isaiah 48:15). Idols and heathen diviners are taunted with not being able to predict ( Isaiah 41:1-7, Isaiah 41:21-24; Isaiah 43:8-13; Isaiah 45:20-21; Isaiah 47:10-13). This power of foretelling the future, as shown in this instance, is insisted upon as the test of divinity. It is of importance to observe, in reference to the prophet's standing-point in this second part, that in speaking both of the captivity in Babylon and of the deliverance out of it, there is (excepting Cyrus" name) no specification of particular circumstances, such as we might expect to find if the writer had written at the end of the exile; the delineation is of a general kind, borrowed frequently from the history of Moses and Joshua. Let it be observed, in particular, that the language respecting the wilderness (e.g. Isaiah 41:17-20), through which the redeemed were to pass, is unmistakably ideal and symbolical.

"It is characteristic of sacred prophecy in general, that the "vision" of a great deliverance leads the seer to glance at the great deliverance to come through Jesus Christ. This association of ideas is found in several passages in the first part of Isaiah 10:24 to Isaiah 11:16; Isaiah 31:8 to Isaiah 32:2). This principle of association prevails in the second part taken as a whole; but in the first section, taken apart, it appears as yet imperfectly. However, Isaiah 42:1-7 is a clear prediction of the Messiah, and that too as viewed in part in contrast with Cyrus; for the "servant" of Jehovah is meek and gentle ( Isaiah 40:2-3), and will establish the true religion in the earth ( Isaiah 40:4). Nevertheless, since the prophet regards the two deliverances as referable to the same type of thought (comp. Isaiah 41:1-3), so the announcement of one ( Isaiah 40:3-5) is held by all the four Evangelists, and by John Baptist himself, as predictive of the announcement of the other."

—Smith's Dictionary of the Bible.