a woman · conjunction + noun, common feminine singular construct
youth
נְעוּרִ֛יםne.'u.Rim
H5271
(only in plural collectively or emphatic form) youth · noun, common masculine plural absolute
refused
תִמָּאֵ֖סti.ma.'Es
H3988
to spurn · verb, niphal imperfect, 3rd person feminine singular
saith
אָמַ֥ר'a.Mar
H559
to say (used with great latitude) · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
God
אֱלֹהָֽיִךְ'e.lo.Ha.yikh
H430
gods in the ordinary sense · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person feminine singular
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 62:4 Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate: but thou shalt be called Hephzi-bah, and thy land…
Proverbs 5:18 Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.
Ecclesiastes 9:9 Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of…
Hosea 2:1-2 Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ru-hamah.
Hosea 2:14-15 Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her.
Isaiah 49:14-21 But Zion said, The LORD hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me.
Isaiah 50:1-2 Thus saith the LORD, Where is the bill of your mother’s divorcement, whom I have put away? or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sol…
Malachi 2:14 Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Isaiah 54:6-10
The seasonable succour and relief which God sent to his captives in Babylon, when they had a discharge from their bondage there, are here foretold, as a type and figure of all those consolations of God which are treasured up for the church in general and all believers in particular, in the covenant of grace.
I. Look back to former troubles, and in comparison with them God's favours to his people appear very comfortable, Isa 54:6-8. Observe, 1. How sorrowful the church's condition had been. She had been as a woman forsaken, whose husband was dead, or had fallen out with her, though she was a wife of youth, upon which account she is grieved in spirit, takes it very ill, frets, and grows melanc…
called--that is, recalled: the prophetic past for the future.
forsaken--that had been forsaken.
when thou--or, "when she was rejected"; one who had been a wife of youth (Eze 16:8, Eze 16:22, Eze 16:60; Jer 2:2) at the time when (thou, or) she was rejected for infidelity [MAURER]. "A wife of youth but afterwards rejected" [LOWTH].
Adam Clarke on Isaiah 54:4
For thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth - That is, "The bondage of Egypt: widowhood, the captivity of Babylon." - Secker.
John Gill on Isaiah 54:6
For the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit,.... That has lost her husband by death, is solitary upon it, is like one forsaken, and mourns for the loss of him; or is forsaken by a living husband, rejected by him, having a bill of divorce from him, and so she grieves at his unkindness to her, and the reproach cast upon her; as such an one was the church when it was first constituted, when the members of which it consisted were called out of the world by the grace of God, and formed into a church state; almost as soon as ever they were thus embodied together, Christ was taken from them by death, and they were left alone, and filled with grief and trouble: the apostl…
(Verse 6, 7) Because the Lord has called you, a forsaken and grieving woman, with the Spirit: and said your God to the wife rejected from her youth. For a moment, in a small thing, I have forsaken you: and in great mercies, I will gather you. In a moment of anger, I have hidden my face from you for a little while: and in everlasting mercy, I have shown compassion to you, says your Redeemer, the Lord. LXX: The Lord did not call you a forsaken and timid woman, nor did your God say of you, a woman who is hated from her youth. I have left you for a short time, but with great mercy I will have compassion on you. In a little burst of anger I turned my face away from you, but with everlasting mercy I will have compassion on you, says the Lord who delivered you. These friends of the Jews insult the abandoned woman and the wife despised from her youth, whom the Lord left for a moment and for a little while, saying that Jerusalem is. He who hides his face for a little while will receive her in everlasting mercies and will change her past sorrow into joy. According to the Hebrew, it does not say that she was called a forsaken and despised woman by the Lord, nor like a wife who has been hated since her youth, but rather that He left her for a little while and turned His face away from her in order to have mercy on her forever. So if the Jews and those among us who are Judaizers say that Israel has been forsaken for a little while so that God may have mercy on them in the coming of Christ, and they interpret 'a little while' in comparison to all of eternity, why do they not allow us to say that there is a little while of time in which the Gentiles have been forsaken, so that those who were once of God in their youth may receive eternal mercy in their old age? Especially when, in the calling of Israel, the crowd of Gentiles was never excluded; but the door of return was always open to them through proselytes, so that just as we seem to be temporarily excluded by their calling, so may their perpetual exclusion grant us a return to God. But we said perpetual exclusion, if they do not repent. Otherwise, the Apostle Paul says: God has confined all under sin, so that he may have mercy on all (Galatians 3:22). We, who are gathered from both the Church of the people, are interpreted; and the Jews of Jerusalem receive: who follow only allegory, and in the most difficult places…
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
Solomon, Song of — Called also, after the Vulgate, the “Canticles.” It is the “song of songs” (1:1), as being the finest and most precious of its kind; the noblest song, “das Hohelied,” as Luther calls it. The…
Divorce · Women: Afflicted by — Women: Afflicted by
Husband · FIGURATIVE — FIGURATIVE
Woman · Illustrative: (Forsaken,) of Israel in her captivity — Illustrative: (Forsaken,) of Israel in her captivity
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).
John Calvin on Isaiah 54:6
For as a woman forsaken. He meets a doubt which might arise in the minds of believers amidst so distressing a calamity. It seemed as if the Lord had rejected them, so that they had nothing to look for but destruction. The Prophet therefore reminds them that they ought not to despair, because they have been thus forsaken; for God, according to his mercy, is ready to be reconciled, and is even willing to raise them from the dead. [65]
And a wife of youth. He employs this expression in order that, by this metaphor, he may more fully confirm their hearts in that hope; for the hearts of young husbands are more easily reconciled than the hearts of older husbands, being attracted, and, as it were,…
And this relation He now renews. "For Jehovah calleth thee as a wife forsaken and burdened with sorrow, and as a wife of youth, when once she is despised, saith thy God." The verb קרא, which is the one commonly used in these prophecies to denote the call of grace, on the ground of the election of grace, is used here to signify the call into that relation, which did indeed exist before, but had apparently been dissolved. קראך is used here out of pause (cf., Isa 60:9); it stands, however, quite irregularly for the form in ēkh, which is the one commonly employed (Jdg 4:20; Eze 27:26). "And as a wife:" ואשׁת is equivalent to וּכאשׁת. The hypothetical תמּאס כּי belongs to the figure. Jehovah cal…
Creator . . . husband: The Lord committed himself to the abandoned woman (his people in exile) as her maker (44:24) and husband (see also 62:4-5; Hos 2:19-20). • The Redeemer transforms misery into freedom and fulfillment (see also Isa 41:14).
Rashi on Isaiah 54:6
who was rejected When she is rejected at times that her husband is a little wroth with her.
