Isaiah 45:14 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Isaiah 45:14
Thus saith the LORD, The labour of Egypt, and merchandise of Ethiopia and of the Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over unto thee, and they shall be thine: they shall come after thee; in chains they shall come over, and they shall fall down unto thee, they shall make supplication unto thee, saying, Surely God is in thee; and there is none else, there is no God.
to say (used with great latitude) · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
LORD
יְהוָ֗הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
labour
יְגִ֨יעַye.Gi.a'
H3018
toil · noun, common masculine singular construct
Egypt
מִצְרַ֥יִםmitz.Ra.yim
H4714
Mitsrajim · proper noun, a place name
merchandise
סָחַרçâchar
H5505
an emporium
Ethiopia
כּוּשׁ֮kush
H3568
Cush (or Ethiopia) · proper noun, a place name
Sabeans
וּסְבָאִים֮u.se.va.'Im
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 49:23 And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers: they shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth,…
Jeremiah 16:19 O LORD, my strength, and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth,…
1 Corinthians 14:25 And thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest; and so falling down on his face he will worship God, and report that God is in you of a…
Isaiah 61:5-6 And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the alien shall be your plowmen and your vinedressers.
Acts 10:25-26 And as Peter was coming in, Cornelius met him, and fell down at his feet, and worshipped him.
Zechariah 8:20-23 Thus saith the LORD of hosts; It shall yet come to pass, that there shall come people, and the inhabitants of many cities:
Exodus 11:8 And all these thy servants shall come down unto me, and bow down themselves unto me, saying, Get thee out, and all the people that follow th…
Psalms 149:8 To bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron;
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Isaiah 45:11-19
The people of God in captivity, who reconciled themselves to the will of God in their affliction and were content to wait his time for their deliverance, are here assured that they should not wait in vain.
I. They are invited to enquire concerning the issue of their troubles, Isa 45:11. The Holy One of Israel, and his Maker, though he does not allow them to strive with him, yet encourages them, 1. To consult his word: "Ask of me things to come; have recourse to the prophets and their prophecies, and see what they say concerning these things. Ask the watchmen, What of the night? Ask them, How long?" Things to come, as far as they are revealed, belong to us and to our children, and we must not…
The language but cursorily alludes to Egypt, Ethiopia, and Seba, being given to Cyrus as a ransom in lieu of Israel whom he restored (Isa 43:3), but mainly and fully describes the gathering in of the Gentiles to Israel (Act 2:10-11; Act 8:27-38), especially at Israel's future restoration (Isa 2:2; Isa 14:1-2; Isa 19:18-22; Isa 60:3-14; Isa 49:23; Psa 68:31; Psa 72:10-11).
labour--wealth acquired by labor (Jer 3:24).
Sabeans . . . of stature--the men of Meroe, in Upper Egypt. HERODOTUS (3.30) calls the Ethiopians "the tallest of men" (see on Isa 18:2; Ch1 11:23).
thee--Jerusalem ("my city," Isa 45:13).
in chains-- (Psa 149:8). "The saints shall judge the world" (Co1 6:2) and "rule the…
Thus saith the Lord,.... The following words are said not to Cyrus, nor to Christ, but to the church, as the feminine pronouns show; and Kimchi observes, they are directed to Jerusalem:
the labour of Egypt, and merchandise of Ethiopia, and of the Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over unto thee; a prophecy of the conversion of many in these nations, who should join themselves to the churches of Christ, formed among them, and make use of their riches, got by merchandise, labour, and industry, for the support of the interest of religion; and had its accomplishment in part, in the first times of the Gospel, which was brought into Egypt, as it is said, by the Evangelist Mark; and by which, no…
The Church Fathers
But consider this also in relation to the homoousion [that the Son is of the same essence as the Father], how the Spirit says to Isaiah, "God is in you, and there is no God outside of you."
Would you receive yet a third testimony to Christ's godhead? Hear Isaiah saying, "Egypt has labored, and the merchandise of Ethiopia," and soon after, "In you shall they make supplication, because God is in you, and there is no God except you. For you are God, and we knew it not, the God of Israel, the Savior." You see that the Son is God, having in himself God the Father, saying almost the very same which he has said in the Gospels. … And again he has not said, "I and the Father am one" but "I and the Father are one," that we should neither separate them nor make a confusion of Son-Father.
(Verse 14 onwards) Thus says the Lord: The labor of Egypt and the trade of Ethiopia and the Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over to you and be yours; they shall follow you; they shall come over in chains and bow down to you. They will plead with you, saying: Surely God is in you, and there is no other, no god besides you. Truly you are a hidden God, the God of Israel, the Savior. All of them are put to shame and are confounded; the makers of idols go in confusion together. Israel has been saved by the Lord with eternal salvation: you will not be confounded, and you will not be ashamed forever. LXX: Thus says the Lord of hosts: Egypt has labored, and the merchandise of Ethiopia and the Sabaeans: men of stature shall come over to you, and they shall be yours, they shall follow you in chains, and they shall come over to you, and they shall adore you, and they shall pray to you: for in you is God, and there is no other God beside you. You are indeed God, and we did not know it: the God of Israel, the Savior: let all his adversaries be confounded and ashamed, and let them walk in confusion. In this place, those who follow the story say that Egypt and the nations of Ethiopia and the Sabaeans, who are beyond Ethiopia, served Cyrus and were subject to him. And they understood by a marvelous victory that the Lord was in him, and there was no other God besides him who dwelt in him. But this that follows, 'Truly you are a hidden God, the God of Israel, the Savior,' how can it apply to the person of Cyrus, I do not understand. Unless, perhaps, they use the edition of Theodotion, who translated, 'In you is strength, and there is no other God besides you: therefore you are a hidden God, the God of Israel, the Savior.' Whatever way they twist it, they will not be able to escape the snares of truth. For if they make God to be in Cyrus, and there is no other besides him who is God in Cyrus, how can it be said of the person of Cyrus, 'Truly you are a hidden God, the God of Israel, the Savior?' Therefore, God in whom God is, our Lord Jesus Christ is understood more rightly and truly, who speaks in the Gospel: I and the Father are one (John 10:30). He who is called God, hidden because of the sacrament of assumed body, and the God of Israel the Savior, which is interpreted as Jesus. For it is he who, according to the Angel Gabriel, will save his people (Luke 1). Indeed, all…
Dictionary and topics
Candace — The queen of the Ethiopians whose “eunuch” or chamberlain was converted to Christianity by the instrumentality of Philip the evangelist (Acts 8:27). The country which she ruled was called by the…
Cush — Black. (1.) A son, probably the eldest, of Ham, and the father of Nimrod (Gen. 10:8; 1 Chr. 1:10). From him the land of Cush seems to have derived its name. The question of the precise locality of…
Ethiopia — Country of burnt faces; the Greek word by which the Hebrew Cush is rendered (Gen. 2:13; 2 Kings 19:9; Esther 1:1; Job 28:19; Ps. 68:31; 87:4), a country which lay to the south of Egypt, beginning at…
Sabeans — Descendants of Seba (Gen. 10:7); Africans (Isa. 43:3). They were “men of stature,” and engaged in merchandise (Isa. 45:14). Their conversion to the Lord was predicted (Ps. 72:10). This word, in Ezek.…
Seba — (1.) One of the sons of Cush (Gen. 10:7). (2.) The name of a country and nation (Isa. 43:3; 45:14) mentioned along with Egypt and Ethiopia, and therefore probably in north-eastern Africa. The ancient…
Commerce · Ethiopians — Ethiopians
Ethiopia · Merchandise of — Merchandise of
Sabeans · Giants among — Giants among
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).
H5436
a Sebaite · conjunction + proper noun, a place name
men
אַנְשֵׁ֣י'an.Shei
H582
a man in general (singly or collectively) · noun, common masculine plural construct
stature
מִדָּה֒mi.Dah
H4060
properly · noun, common feminine singular absolute
over
יַעֲבֹ֙רוּ֙ya.'a.Vo.ru
H5674
to cross over · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
Thus saith Jehovah. He still speaks of the restoration which was afterwards effected under the conduct of Cyrus; but we must keep in remembrance what we formerly remarked, that those promises must be extended farther; for it includes the whole time which followed, down to the coming of Christ. Whoever shall duly consider and weigh this Prophet's ordinary style will find in his words nothing extravagant, and will not look upon his language as exaggerated.
The labor of Egypt, the merchandise of Ethiopia. The Prophet alludes to the expenses which Cyrus contributed for building and adorning the temple. (Ezra 6:8) At that time was fulfilled what he says, that "the labor of Egypt" and "the mercha…
The second half is uttered in the prospect, that the judgment which Cyrus brings upon the nations will prepare the way for the overthrow of heathenism, and the universal acknowledgment of the God of Israel. The heathen submit, as the first strophe or group of vv. (Isa 45:14-17) affirms, to the congregation and its God; the idolatrous are converted, whilst Israel is for ever redeemed. With the prospect of the release of the exiles, there is associated in the prophet's perspective the prospect of an expansion of the restored church, through the entrance of "the fulness of the Gentiles." "Thus saith Jehovah, The productions of Egypt, and gain of Ethiopia, and the Sabaeans, men of tall stature,…
Egyptians . . . Ethiopians . . . Sabeans: Israel’s restoration would bring them a new sovereignty. Foreign nations would honor God, and because they recognized God’s special blessing on his people, they would also want to honor his people.
Rashi on Isaiah 45:14
The toil of Egypt etc. I have informed how I will save My children from the hand of Babylon, for I have aroused Cyrus for that purpose with My righteousness. I further inform you of the salvation from Sennacherib that will take place in the days of Hezekiah. When he returns (supra 36:36) from marching upon Tirhaka, king of Cush, he will return to Jerusalem with all the valuable treasures of Cush, and Egypt, who will go to aid Cush, in his possession, and he will come with those spoils and fall in Jerusalem, and Hezekiah and his people will plunder everything. So is it delineated in Seder Olam (ch. 23) that it is stated concerning Sennacherib.
men of stature Tall people.
over to you Jerusal…
