Isaiah 43:14 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Isaiah 43:14
Thus saith the LORD, your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; For your sake I have sent to Babylon, and have brought down all their nobles, and the Chaldeans, whose cry is in the ships.
to say (used with great latitude) · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
LORD
יְהוָ֛הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
redeemer
גֹּאַלְכֶ֖םgo.'al.Khem
H1350
to be the next of kin (and as such to buy back a relati… · verb, qal active participle, masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine plural
One
קְד֣וֹשׁke.Do.osh
H6918
sacred (ceremonially or morally) · adjective, masculine singular construct
Israel
יִשְׂרָאֵ֑לYis.ra.'El
H3478
Jisrael · proper noun, a place name
sent
שִׁלַּ֣חְתִּיshi.Lach.ti
H7971
to send away · verb, piel perfect, 1st person common singular
Babylon
בָבֶ֗לָהva.Ve.lah
H894
Babel (i.e. Babylon) · proper noun, a place name + directional suffix
down
וְהוֹרַדְתִּ֤יve.ho.rad.Ti
H3381
to descend (literally · conjunction + verb, hiphil sequential perfect, 1st person common singular
nobles
בָֽרִיחִים֙va.ri.Chim
H1281
a fugitive · adjective, masculine plural absolute
Chaldeans
וְכַשְׂדִּ֖יםve.khas.Dim
H3778
a Kasdite · conjunction + noun, gentilic masculine plural absolute
cry
רִנָּתָֽםri.na.Tam
H7440
properly · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
ships
בָּאֳנִיּ֥וֹתbo.'o.ni.Yot
H591
a ship · preposition + noun, common feminine plural 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
Isaiah 23:13 Behold the land of the Chaldeans; this people was not, till the Assyrian founded it for them that dwell in the wilderness: they set up the t…
Isaiah 44:6 Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God…
Jeremiah 51:24 And I will render unto Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight, saith the LOR…
Isaiah 44:24-45:5 Thus saith the LORD, thy redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the LORD that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the he…
Psalms 19:14 Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.
Isaiah 43:1 But now thus saith the LORD that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called…
Isaiah 43:3-4 For I am the LORD thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour: I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee.
Isaiah 54:5-8 For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Isaiah 43:14-21
To so low an ebb were the faith and hope of God's people in Babylon brought that there needed line upon line to assure them that they should be released out of their captivity; and therefore, that they might have strong consolation, the assurances of it are often repeated, and here very expressly and encouragingly.
I. God here takes to himself such titles of his honour as were very encouraging to them. He is the Lord their Redeemer, not only he will redeem them, but will take it upon him as his office and make it his business to do so. If he be their God, he will be all that to them which they need, and therefore, when they are in bondage, he will be their Redeemer. He is the Holy One of Isr…
sent--namely, the Medes and Persians (Isa 10:5-6; Isa 13:3).
brought down--"made to go down" to the sea (Isa 42:10), in order to escape the impending destruction of Babylon.
nobles--rather, "fugitives," namely, the foreigners who sojourned in populous Babylon (Isa 13:14), distinct from the Chaldeans [MAURER].
whose cry is in the ships--exulting in their ships with the joyous sailors--cry, boastingly; their joy heretofore in their ships contrasts sadly with their present panic in fleeing to them (Isa 22:2; Zep 2:15). Babylon was on the Euphrates, which was joined to the Tigris by a canal, and flowed into the Persian Gulf. Thus it was famed for ships and commerce until the Persian monarc…
Thus saith the Lord, your Redeemer,.... That redeemed Israel out of Egypt, and would redeem the Jews from Babylon in a short time, and be the author of a greater redemption to his people than either of these, even a spiritual and eternal one:
the Holy One of Israel; see Isaiah 43:3, holy in himself, holiness to Israel, and faithful to his promises:
for your sake I have sent to Babylon: Cyrus and his army to take it, in order to deliver the Jews from their captivity in it. The Targum wrongly paraphrases it to the sense quite contrary,
"for your sins have I carried you captive unto Babylon:''
and have brought down all their nobles; from their seats of honour and glory, stripped them of all…
The Church Fathers
[Isaiah] predicts the defeat of the Babylonians and the enslavement of the Chaldeans. They will suffer these misfortunes because of you, he says, since they were unwilling to recognize that their victory depended on my good will and that you were made prisoners because I rejected you.
"I have brought down all the runaways and the Chaldeans," that is, "For your sake I will send you to Babylon" and will make the Medes rise, in order to deliver you from captivity. And when the Babylonians fly from you in every manner, through the land and the sea, they will be captured in "their ships" and be imprisoned. He calls "runaways" the Medes because of their previous weakness.
(Verse 14.) Thus saith the Lord, your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: For your sake I have sent to Babylon, and have brought down all their bars, and the Chaldeans glorying in their ships. I am the Lord, your Holy One, the creator of Israel, your king. LXX: Thus saith the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, your redeemer: For your sakes I will send to Babylon, and will bring down all their fugitives, and the Chaldeans, in the ships of their rejoicing. I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, who have shown your king, Israel. According to the Hebrew, the prophetic speech is still directed to Israel, to whom their redeemer, the Lord and Holy One of Israel, spoke these words: 'Because of you who preach the Gospel with me, to whom I said above: Do not be afraid, for I am with you, you who are the witnesses of my will, and you announce my other Son to the unbelieving world, I have sent my Son into Babylon and the confusion of this age. And I have removed all its bars, which are called Barihim in Hebrew (or Barichim, as interpreted by Theodotion).' And, he said, the Chaldeans are implied, I have removed those who boasted in their ships: in these, namely, who floated like ships among idols. No one doubts about the Chaldeans that they sound like demons. I, the Lord, have foretold these things, who am your Creator and the king of Israel. Moreover, according to the Septuagint, the meaning is quite different: I, the Lord, who have delivered you from dangers, and the holy one of Israel: because of you, I will send the king of the Medes and Persians to Babylon, and I will make its inhabitants flee, and the Chaldeans who captured you will be bound and transferred across the Caspian Sea to other nations. I, the Lord, have determined these future events, which will reveal that the King of Israel will be the one who believes.
Dictionary and topics
Babylon, kingdom of — Called “the land of the Chaldeans” (Jer. 24:5; Ezek, 12:13), was an extensive province in Central Asia along the valley of the Tigris from the Persian Gulf northward for some 300 miles. It was famed…
Fugitive — Gen. 4:12, 14, a rover or wanderer (Heb. n’a); Judg. 12:4, a refugee, one who has escaped (Heb. palit); 2 Kings 25:11, a deserter, one who has fallen away to the enemy (Heb. nophel); Ezek. 17:21, one…
Babylon · Remarkable for: Naval power — Remarkable for: Naval power
Condescension Of God · Expostulates with backsliding Israel — Expostulates with backsliding Israel
Privileges Of Saints · Having God for their: Redeemer — Having God for their: Redeemer
Ships · Mentioned in scripture: Of Chaldea — Mentioned in scripture: Of Chaldea
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).
Thus saith Jehovah. The Prophet shews that Cyrus will be but a hired soldier, to render his services to the Lord for delivering his people. He does not indeed name Cyrus, but speaks of the army which he has under his command for subduing the Babylonians. We know that this was accomplished by Cyrus and Darius, and that under the direction of God, who had foretold it long before. And not only does he speak to those who beheld the accomplishment of these things, but to all others whom the Lord wished to comfort by this hope of deliverance, of which they could not have formed the smallest conception. He addresses captives, who, having been oppressed by the cruel tyranny of the Babylonians, appea…
In close connection with the foregoing prophecy, the present one commences with the dissolution of the Chaldean empire. "Thus saith Jehovah, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, For your sake I have sent to Babel, and will hurl them all down as fugitives, and the Chaldeans into the ships of their rejoicing. I, Jehovah, am your Holy One; (I) Israel's Creator, your King." Hitzig reads באניות, and adopts the rendering, "and drowned the shouting of the Chaldeans in groaning." Ewald also corrects Isa 43:14 thus: "And plunge their guitars into groanings, and the rejoicing of the Chaldeans into sighs." We cannot see any good taste in this un-Hebraic bombast. Nor is there any more reason for alter…
The Lord assured Israel of its coming redemption from Babylon; the redemption would be modeled on Israel’s past redemption from Egypt and would be greater in some ways (43:18).
Rashi on Isaiah 43:14
Because of you, I sent [you] to Babylon Jonathan paraphrases: Because of your sins I exiled you to Babylon.
and I lowered them all with oars Heb. וְהוֹרַדְתִּי בָרִיחִים. Jonathan renders: And I lowered with oars (בִּמְשׁוֹטִין), all of them. מְשׁוֹטִין denotes the wood that guides the ship and straightens it out.
and Chaldees led you in the ships of their rejoicing. This may also be explained as regards the news of the redemption, as follows: Because of you, I sent I will send the kings of Media to Babylon, and I will lower the Chaldees in ships and oars into exile to the land of Media. And the Chaldees I will lower in ships which their rejoicing was [i.e., the Chaldees would be taken int…
