Isaiah 54:9 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Isaiah 54:9
For this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee.
to seven oneself · verb, niphal perfect, 1st person common singular
waters
מֵיmei-
H4325
water · noun, common masculine plural construct
Noah
נֹ֛חַNo.ach
H5146
Noach · proper noun, a man's name
over
מֵעֲבֹ֥רme.'a.Vor
H5674
to cross over · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct
earth
הָאָ֑רֶץha.'A.retz
H776
the earth (at large · definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
sworn
נִשְׁבַּ֛עְתִּיnish.Ba'.ti
H7650
to seven oneself · verb, niphal perfect, 1st person common singular
wroth
מִקְּצֹ֥ףmi.ke.Tzof
H7107
to crack off · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct
rebuke
וּמִגְּעָרu.mi.ge.'or-
H1605
to chide · conjunction + preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct
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 12:1 And in that day thou shalt say, O LORD, I will praise thee: though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst…
Genesis 8:21 And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imag…
Genesis 9:11-16 And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any mor…
Hebrews 6:16-18 For men verily swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife.
Psalms 104:9 Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over; that they turn not again to cover the earth.
Isaiah 55:11 So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it…
Jeremiah 31:35-36 Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which di…
Jeremiah 33:20-26 Thus saith the LORD; If ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night in the…
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…
I am about to do the same in this instance as in Noah's flood. As I swore then that it should not return (Gen 8:21; Gen 9:11), and I kept that promise, so I swear now to My people, and will perform My promise, that there shall be no return of the deluge of My wrath upon them. LOWTH, on insufficient authority, reads (the same will I do now as), "in the days of Noah."
Adam Clarke on Isaiah 54:9
For this is as the waters of Noah unto me "The same will I do now, as in the days of Noah" - כימי kimey, in one word, in a MS., and some editions; and so the Syriac, Chaldee, Vulgate, Symmachus, Theodotion, Abarbanel, Sal. ben Melec, and Kimchi acknowledge that their copies vary in this place.
It is certain that these two words כי מי ki mey, were written formerly as one. Taken as two כי מי ki mey, they signify for as the waters - when as one, כימי kimey, they signify as the days. This latter reading is found in about four of Kennicott's and De Rossi's MSS. In one of my own it appears to have been intended as one word: but he who added the points, which are by a much later hand than the MS. i…
For this is as the waters of Noah unto me,.... Some copies, as Kimchi and Ben Melech observe, read these two words, , as one, thus, "as the days of Noah"; and this is followed by the Targum, Vulgate Latin, and Syriac versions; both readings may be kept, and joined in one, and the sense be, "for this is as the waters that were in the days of Noah unto me"; so Kimchi and Menachem join them. The meaning is, that God's dispensation towards his people, at the time the prophecy refers to, is like that of his to Noah and his family; and the love he bears to them is like that which he bore to him; and the covenant he has made with them is as that he made with him:
for as I have sworn that the wate…
The Church Fathers
He says, "Remember the covenants made with Noah and recognize their truth. I have promised never again to destroy the earth in such a way. Having the first covenant as a pledge, believe that you will always enjoy my love, and I will firmly guard your peace, and I will never dissolve this marriage."
In order that the congregation of saints may believe in the eternal mercy of the Lord, and therefore at this point, and briefly, that they may be deserted, in order to be joined in friendship with God, in an eternal covenant, he presents examples of the ancestors, saying: Just as with the whole world sinning, after all the earth corrupted the way of the Lord, the flood came: and when all sins were deleted with all their authors, and in one man Noah the human race was saved: to whom I swore that the flood would never be brought upon the earth: and my promise has been kept until now, and will never be made void (Gen. 8 and 9); in the same way, I swear to my Church, which I redeemed with my blood, that I will never be angry with those whom I have shown mercy, nor will my clemency be changed by any hardness of reproach. For it is easier for mountains and hills to be moved than for my opinion to be changed. Just as it is said in the Gospel: Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away (Matthew 24:35). This, however, is my mercy, like the covenant of peace by which the world was reconciled to me, preserved not by the merit of those to whom it was given, but by my own clemency. According to the Septuagint, the meaning is confused, and everything is so disturbed that it is difficult to understand what is being said. Not because I am ignorant of what the most prudent man said in this chapter, but because it does not satisfy my mind. For it puts forward the flood, which is interpreted in the baptism of the Savior, gathering together many examples, as it is written: The Lord makes the flood inhabit (Ps. 28:10). And again: The Lord is sweet to those who wait for him in the day of tribulation, and he knows those who fear him, and he makes the consummation of the journey in the flood (Nahum 1:7, according to the Septuagint): namely, that he has washed away all sins in baptism, saying in another place: I am, I am, the one who blots out your iniquities (Isaiah 43:25). For all have turned away; together they have become useless (Psalm 13:3). There was no one who would do mercy, nor truth; nor was there knowledge of God upon the earth. Curse, and falsehood, and murder, and adultery, and theft had taken possession of all things, and they had mixed blood with blood. Therefore, He speaks through the Prophet: Woe to me! for the returning one has perished from…
Dictionary and topics
Deluge — The name given to Noah’s flood, the history of which is recorded in Gen. 7 and 8. It began in the year 2516 B.C., and continued twelve lunar months and ten days, or exactly one solar year. The cause…
Covenant, The · Is a covenant of peace — Is a covenant of peace
Deluge, The · Called the: Waters of Noah — Called the: Waters of Noah
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).
For the waters of Noah, or, As the days of Noah. There are two readings of this passage; for if we read it ky my (ki me), ky (ki) must be translated for; and if we read it kymy, (kime,) k (caph) must be translated As, and ymy (yeme) must be translated Days. [70] As to the general meaning, it makes little difference; and therefore we ought chiefly to consider what the Prophet meant, for commentators do not appear to me to have caught his meaning. They explain it generally, that the Lord promised to: Noah by an oath, that there would never be a deluge, and that this oath would perpetually remain in force. (Genesis 9:10) But for this, the good man might have trembled, and, at the approach of ra…
The ground of this "everlasting kindness" is given in Isa 54:9 : "For it is now as at the waters of Noah, when I swore that the waters of Noah should not overflow the earth any more; so have I sworn not to be wroth with thee, and not to threaten thee." The commencement of this v. has been a fluctuating one from the earliest times. The Sept. reading is ממּי; that of the Targ., S., Jerome, Syriac, and Saad., כּימי; and even the Codd. read sometimes כּי־מי, sometimes כּימי (compare Mat 24:37, ὥσπερ αἱ ἡμέραι τοῦ Νῶε οὕτως κ.τ.λ - a passage which appears to derive its shape from the one before us, with the reading כימי, and which is expounded in Luk 17:26). If we read כימי, the word זאת…
The Exile was similar in both drama and trauma to the flood in the time of Noah. In both instances, people sinned grievously against the Lord, but the Lord renewed his commitment to creation (after Noah’s flood) and to his people (after the Exile).
Rashi on Isaiah 54:9
For this is to Me [as] the waters of Noah [i.e.,] it is an oath in My hand, and He proceeds to explain His words, “as I swore that the waters of Noah shall never again pass over the earth, etc.”
(Vers. 9, 10.) As in the days of Noah, this is for me, to whom I swore, that I would not bring the waters of Noah any more over the earth: so have I sworn, not to be angry with you, and not to rebuke you. For the mountains shall be moved, and the hills shall tremble: but my mercy shall not depart from you, and the covenant of my peace shall not be moved, says the Lord, your merciful one. LXX: This is for me from the water that was under Noah: as I swore to him at that time, that the earth will never again be angry with you, nor shall the mountains be moved by your threats, nor shall your hills be moved. So neither will my mercy fail, nor will the testament of my peace be taken away, says the Lord your merciful God. In order that the congregation of saints may believe in the eternal mercy of the Lord, and therefore at this point, and briefly, that they may be deserted, in order to be joined in friendship with God, in an eternal covenant, he presents examples of the ancestors, saying: Just as with the whole world sinning, after all the earth corrupted the way of the Lord, the flood came: and when all sins were deleted with all their authors, and in one man Noah the human race was saved: to whom I swore that the flood would never be brought upon the earth: and my promise has been kept until now, and will never be made void (Gen. 8 and 9); in the same way, I swear to my Church, which I redeemed with my blood, that I will never be angry with those whom I have shown mercy, nor will my clemency be changed by any hardness of reproach. For it is easier for mountains and hills to be moved than for my opinion to be changed. Just as it is said in the Gospel: Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away (Matthew 24:35). This, however, is my mercy, like the covenant of peace by which the world was reconciled to me, preserved not by the merit of those to whom it was given, but by my own clemency. According to the Septuagint, the meaning is confused, and everything is so disturbed that it is difficult to understand what is being said. Not because I am ignorant of what the most prudent man said in this chapter, but because it does not satisfy my mind. For it puts forward the flood, which is interpreted in the baptism of the Savior, gathering together many examples, as it is written: The Lord makes the flood inhabit (Ps. 28:10). And again: The Lord is…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
