Isaiah 43:12 - meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Isaiah 43:12
I have declared, and have saved, and I have shewed, when there was no strange god among you: therefore ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, that I am God.
properly · verb, hiphil perfect, 1st person common singular
saved
וְהוֹשַׁ֙עְתִּי֙ve.ho.Sha'.ti
H3467
properly · conjunction + verb, hiphil perfect, 1st person common singular
shewed
וְהִשְׁמַ֔עְתִּיve.hish.Ma'.ti
H8085
to hear intelligently (often with implication of attent… · conjunction + verb, hiphil sequential perfect, 1st person common singular
strange
זָ֑רZar
H2114
to turn aside (especially for lodging) · adjective, masculine singular absolute
witnesses
עֵדַ֛י'e.Dai
H5707
concretely · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix
saith
נְאֻםne.'um-
H5002
an oracle · noun, common masculine singular construct
LORD
יְהוָ֖הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
God
אֵֽל'El
H410
strength · noun, common masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Deuteronomy 32:12 So the LORD alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him.
Psalms 81:9-10 There shall no strange god be in thee; neither shalt thou worship any strange god.
Isaiah 44:8 Fear ye not, neither be afraid: have not I told thee from that time, and have declared it? ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside m…
Isaiah 43:10 Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before…
Isaiah 37:7 Behold, I will send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a rumour, and return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in h…
Isaiah 37:20 Now therefore, O LORD our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the LORD, even thou only.
Isaiah 46:9-10 Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me,
Isaiah 48:4-7 Because I knew that thou art obstinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow brass;
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Isaiah 43:8-13
God here challenges the worshippers of idols to produce such proofs of the divinity of their false gods as even this very instance (to go no further) of the redemption of the Jews out of Babylon furnished the people of Israel with, to prove that their God is the true and living God, and he only.
I. The patrons of idolatry are here called to appear, and say what they have to say in defence of their idols, Isa 43:8, Isa 43:9. Their gods have eyes and see not, ears and hear not, and those that make them and trust in them are like unto them; so David had said (Psa 115:8), to which the prophet seems here to refer when he calls idolaters blind people that have eyes, and deaf people that have ears.…
declared--predicted the future (Isa 41:22-23).
saved--the nation, in past times of danger.
showed--namely, that I was God.
when . . . no strange god, &c.--to whom the predictions uttered by Me could be assigned. "Strange" means foreign, introduced from abroad.
John Gill on Isaiah 43:12
I have declared, and I have saved, and I have showed,.... The Targum is,
"I have showed to Abraham your father what should come to pass; I redeemed you out of Egypt, as I swore to him between the pieces; and I caused you to hear the doctrine of the law at Sinai.''
But the sense is, that God had declared by his prophets, long before the Messiah came, that he would send him; that he should come and save his people by his obedience, sufferings, and death; accordingly he was come, and was the author of salvation; the Lord had wrought out salvation by him, as he had declared he would; and this he had shown, published, and made known by the everlasting Gospel, preached among all nations:
when t…
I have told and have saved. This verse is a sort of recapitulation (anakephalaiosis) of the preceding; for Jehovah again relates that he foretold future events, and that he had actually accomplished what he foretold. To tell relates to foreknowledge, and to save relates to power and goodness. In a word, he means that he alone is God, who both knows and does all things. Although these things were spoken to the Jews, yet let us know that they belong to us also; for all the predictions that have come down to us ought to be regarded by us as so many proofs both of the knowledge and of the power of God, that we may rely on him alone.
And there is no strange god among you. That superstitions may…
The Church Fathers
I not only made the predictions; I have also brought them to their conclusion. "I reproached, and then there was no strange god among you." The three interpreters have rendered the word "I have reproached" by the verb "I have made to understand," which comes back to saying, I have born witness. The verb "I have made reproaches" also has the same sense: it is because they do not cease to sin that they suffer reproaches. Moreover, he then makes the following declaration: At the time when I gave the law, no strange god was present: "You are my witnesses, and I am the Lord God." Know clearly, he is saying, that no one else is concerned for you, but that you alone have benefited by my providence.
(Verses 12-13) I have declared and saved; I have made known, and there was no strange one among you. You are my witnesses, says the Lord, and I am God, and from the beginning I am myself, and there is no one who can rescue from my hand. I will work, and who can turn it aside? LXX: I have declared and saved: I have rebuked and there was no stranger among you. You are my witnesses, and I am the Lord God from the beginning, and there is no one who can deliver from my hand. I will do it, and who will turn it away? So when I foretell these things from the beginning, there will be no one who rejects my will: indeed, what I have done, they could make void. These things are indeed said to Jacob and Israel, but they refer to the apostolic choir and all who want to believe in Christ and be saved from the Jewish people.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Condescension Of God · Expostulates with backsliding Israel — Expostulates with backsliding Israel
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
The address now closes by holding up once more the object and warrant of faith. "I am Jehovah; and beside me there is no Savour. I have proclaimed and brought salvation, and given to perceive, and there was no other god among you: and ye are my witnesses, saith Jehovah, and I am God. Even from the day onwards I am so; and there is no deliverer out of my hand: I act, and who can turn it back?" The proper name "Jehovah" is used here (Isa 43:13) as a name indicating essence: "I and no other am the absolutely existing and living One," i.e., He who proves His existence by His acts, and indeed by His saving acts. מושׁיע and Jehovah are kindred epithets here; just as in the New Testament the name J…
you are my witnesses: By their very presence in exile, Israel was evidence that God is truly God. He predicted the Exile long beforehand, and now it had come to pass. God alone is the true God because he speaks and acts and controls all of history. Idols and false gods could do none of these things. Israel would later become even greater evidence because God had also predicted their redemption (43:11-12).
Rashi on Isaiah 43:12
I told of the exiles to Abraham.
and I saved to fulfill the word at the time [designated for its] end.
and I made heard to you the first events.
and there was no stranger among you In those days, when I did all these, there did not appear among all of you, among the heathens (the children of the nations [mss., K’li Paz]) a strange God, to show his greatness and his Godliness. ([Other manuscripts read:] And I made My Torah heard to you, and none among you estranged himself from accepting.)
and you are My witnesses that I opened seven heavens for you, and you saw no image.
