Isaiah 44:24 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Isaiah 44:24
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 heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself;
to say (used with great latitude) · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
LORD
יְהוָה֙Yah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
redeemer
גֹּאֲלֶ֔ךָgo.'a.Le.kha
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 singular
formed
וְיֹצֶרְךָ֖ve.yo.tzer.Kha
H3335
to mould into a form · conjunction + verb, qal active participle, masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
womb
מִבָּ֑טֶןmi.Ba.ten
H990
the belly · preposition + noun, common feminine singular absolute
LORD
יְהוָה֙Yah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
maketh
עֹ֣שֶׂה'O.seh
H6213
to do or make · verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
forth
נֹטֶ֤הno.Teh
H5186
to stretch or spread out · verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
heavens
שָׁמַ֙יִם֙sha.Ma.yim
H8064
the sky (as aloft · noun, common masculine plural absolute
abroad
רֹקַ֥עro.Ka'
H7554
to pound the earth (as a sign of passion) · verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
earth
הָאָ֖רֶץha.'A.retz
H776
the earth (at large · definite article + noun, common feminine 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
Isaiah 42:5 Thus saith God the LORD, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of i…
Isaiah 45:12 I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded.
Isaiah 54:5 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…
Isaiah 45:18 For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not i…
Isaiah 44:2 Thus saith the LORD that made thee, and formed thee from the womb, which will help thee; Fear not, O Jacob, my servant; and thou, Jesurun, w…
Job 9:8 Which alone spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the waves of the sea.
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, an…
Isaiah 51:13 And forgettest the LORD thy maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth; and hast feared continually…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Isaiah 44:21–end
In these verses we have,
I. The duty which Jacob and Israel, now in captivity, were called to, that they might be qualified and prepared for the deliverance designed them. Our first care must be to get good by our afflictions, and then we may hope to get out of them. The duty is expressed in two words: Remember and return, as in the counsel to Ephesus, Rev 2:4, Rev 2:5. 1. "Remember these, O Jacob! Remember what thou hast been told of the folly of idolatry, and let the convictions thou art now under be ready to thee whenever thou art tempted to that sin. Remember that thou art my servant, and therefore must not serve other masters." 2. Return unto me, Isa 44:22. It is the great concern of th…
Confirmation of His promises to the Church and Israel, by various instances of His omnipotence; among these the restoration of the Jews by Cyrus.
alone--literally, "Who was with Me?" namely, when I did it; answering to "by Myself," in the parallel clause (compare similar phrases, Hos 8:4; Joh 5:30) [MAURER].
John Gill on Isaiah 44:24
Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer,.... These are the words of the Son of God, of Christ, the Redeemer of his people; and the following show him to be the mighty God, and so able to redeem them, and therefore was appointed to this work, and undertook it:
and he that formed thee from the womb; that formed thee in it, and brought thee out of it, separated thee from it, and called thee by his grace:
I am the Lord that maketh all things; that made all things out of nothing at first; for without Christ was not anything made that was made; all things in heaven, and earth, and sea, were made by him; and he continues all creatures in their being, and provides for them, and governs all by his power;…
Thus saith Jehovah. The Prophet will immediately describe in his own manner the strength and power of God; because the bare promises would have little authority and weight, if the power of God were not brought forward, in order to remove all doubt from our hearts. By our distrust and obstinacy we are wont to lessen the power and goodness of God, that is, to ascribe to it less than we ought; and, therefore, the Prophet, by remarkable commendations, which we shall soon afterwards see, will encourage believers to learn to hope beyond hope.
Thy Redeemer. He begins by praising the goodness and fatherly kindness with which God has embraced his Church, and which he intends to exercise till the end…
The Church Fathers
The text has presented, at the same time, a triple teaching: God is the creator, the master and the protector. For the term "Lord" demonstrates his sovereignty; the idea of "redemption," God's protection; and that of "formation," the creation. "I am the Lord who performs all these things." It is I who have sent you the sorrows and who will obtain the joys for you. Then God shows, by the events that have already happened, what he is able to do. "I alone stretched out the heaven and established the earth." This again serves to refute completely the madness of Arius and Eunomius, for who is the one who alone has created the elements? Is it the Father? Then the Son is not the Creator. Or is it the Son? Then the Father is not the Creator. But if it is the Father and the Son, how should we understand the term "alone"? Surely it is evident that we must understand it of the one divinity of the Trinity.
(Verse 24) Thus says the Lord, your redeemer, and your creator from the womb: I am the Lord, the maker of all things, stretching out the heavens alone, establishing the earth, with no one beside me. LXX: Thus says the Lord who redeemed you, and formed you from the womb. I am the Lord, who fills all things: I alone stretched out the heavens, and established the earth. With the idols and injustices of Israel destroyed, and sins cleansed, when every creature will rejoice together; and according to the faith of the Gospel (Luke 15), the Angels will rejoice in heaven for the repentance of sinners, the power of God is described, that it is not great for him to redeem Jacob, and to restore Israel, whom he formed from the womb. And if this seems significant to someone, let it not be difficult for them who alone stretches out the heavens. As it is written elsewhere: He who stretches out the heavens like a skin (Ps. CIII, 2). Not that the Son is excluded from the stretching out of the heavens: For all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made (John I, 3), but so that, as we have often said, idols may be excluded by this understanding. For even in the Proverbs of Solomon, from the person of Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God is said: When he established the heavens, I was with him (Prov. VIII, 27). For he himself spoke, and they were made; he himself commanded, and they were created (Psalm 148:5; Psalm 33:9). And: By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and all the power of them by the breath of his mouth (Psalm 33:6). We frequently proclaim these things so that no occasion is given to the heretics to blaspheme Christ. In the stability of the earth, when he was establishing its foundations, there was no one with God except him who was in it.
Dictionary and topics
Curtain — (1.) Ten curtains, each twenty-eight cubits long and four wide, made of fine linen, also eleven made of goat’s hair, covered the tabernacle (Ex. 26:1-13; 36:8-17). (2.) The sacred curtain, separating…
Unity Of God · Exhibited in: His works of creation and providence — Exhibited in: His works of creation and providence
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 promise takes a new turn here, acquiring greater and greater speciality. It is introduced as the word of Jehovah, who first gave existence to Israel, and has not let it go to ruin. "Thus saith Jehovah, thy Redeemer, and He that formed thee from the womb, I Jehovah am He that accomplisheth all; who stretched out the heavens alone, spread out the earth by Himself; who bringeth to nought the signs of the prophets of lies, and exposeth the soothsayers as raging mad; who turneth back the wise men, and maketh their science folly; who realizeth the word of His servant, and accomplisheth the prediction of His messengers; who saith to Jerusalem, She shall be inhabited! and to the cities of Judah,…
And when the prophet says concerning the creation, "That stretches forth the heavens alone," and when God says, "I only stretch out the heavens," it is made plain to everyone that in the "Only" is signified also the Word of the Only, in whom "all things were made" and without whom "was made not one thing." Therefore, if they were made through the Word, and yet he says, "Only," and together with that Only is understood the Son, through whom the heavens were made, so also then, if it is said, "One God," and "I Only," and "I the First," in that "One" and "Only" and "First" is understood the Word co-existing, as in the Light the Radiance. And this can be understood of no other than the Word alone. For all other things subsisted out of nothing through the Son and are greatly different in nature, but the Son himself is natural and true offspring from the Father. And thus the very passage that these insensate have thought fit to adduce, "I the First," in defense of their heresy, does rather expose their perverse spirit. For God says, "I the first, and I the last"; if then, as though ranked with the things after him, he is said to be first of them, so that they come next to him, then certainly you will have shown that he himself precedes the works in time only; which, to go no further, is extreme irreligion. But if it is in order to prove that he is not from any, nor any before him, but that he is Origin and Cause of all things and to destroy the Gentile fables that he has said, "I the first," it is plain also that when the Son is called firstborn, this is done not for the sake of ranking him with the creation but to prove the framing and adoption of all things through the Son. For as the Father is first, so also is [the Son] both first, as image of the First, and because the First is in him, and also offspring from the Father, in whom the whole creation is created and adopted into sonship.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
