Matthew Henry on Isaiah 64:1-5
Here, I. The petition is that God would appear wonderfully for them now, Isa 64:1, Isa 64:2. Their case was represented in the close of the foregoing chapter as very sad and very hard, and in this case it was time to cry, "Help, Lord; O that God would manifest his zeal and his strength!" They had prayed (Isa 63:15) that God would look down from heaven; here they pray that he would come down to deliver them, as he had said, Exo 3:8. 1. They desire that God would in his providence manifest himself both to them and for them. When God works some extraordinary deliverance for his people he is said to shine forth, to show himself strong; so, here, they pray that he would rend the heavens and come…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Isaiah 64:2
Oh, that Thy wrath would consume Thy foes as the fire. Rather, "as the fire burneth the dry brushwood" [GESENIUS].
Adam Clarke on Isaiah 64:2
As when the melting fire burneth "As the fire kindleth the dry fuel" - המסים hamasim. "It means dry stubble, and the root is המס hamas, "says Rabbi Jonah, apud Sal ben Belec in loc. Which is approved by Schultens, Orig. Hebrews p. 30.
"The fire kindling the stubble does not seem like enough to the melting of the mountains to be brought as a simile to it. What if thus? -
'That the mountains might flow down at thy presence!
As the fire of things smelted burneth,
As the fire causeth the waters to boil - '
There is no doubt of the Hebrew words of the second line bearing that version." - Dr. Jubb.
I submit these different interpretations to the reader's judgment. For my own part I am inclined to…
Read the whole note in the consoleJohn Gill on Isaiah 64:2
As when the melting fire burneth,.... Or, "the fire of melting" (k); a strong vehement fire, as Kimchi, such as is used under a furnace for melting metals; though De Dieu thinks a slow gentle fire is intended, such as is sufficient to keep the liquor boiling; which he concludes from the use of the word in the Arabic language, which, according to an Arabic lexicographer (l) he quotes, so signifies; and to the same purpose Hottinger (m), by the help of the Arabic language, interprets the word of a small low noise, the hissing of a boiling pot; though, as Vitringa observes, could it be granted, which can not, that a slow fire raises great bubbles in water, such as when it boils; yet the fire, w…
