Isaiah 64:7 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Isaiah 64:7
And there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee: for thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us, because of our iniquities.
to call out to (i.e. properly · verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
name
בְשִׁמְךָ֔ve.shim.Kha
H8034
an appellation · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
up
מִתְעוֹרֵ֖רmit.'o.Rer
H5782
to wake (literally or figuratively) · verb, hithpael active participle, masculine singular absolute
hold
לְהַחֲזִ֣יקle.ha.cha.Zik
H2388
to fasten upon · preposition + verb, hiphil infinitive construct
hid
הִסְתַּ֤רְתָּhis.Tar.ta
H5641
to hide (by covering) · verb, hiphil perfect, 2nd person masculine singular
face
פָנֶ֙יךָ֙fa.Nei.kha
H6440
the face (as the part that turns) · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
consumed
וַתְּמוּגֵ֖נוּva.te.mu.Ge.nu
H4127
to melt · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular + pronominal suffix
because
בְּיַדbe.yad-
H3027
a hand (the open one (indicating power · preposition + noun, common both genders singular construct
iniquities
עֲוֹנֵֽנוּ'a.vo.Ne.nu
H5771
perversity · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix
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
Ezekiel 22:30 And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it:…
Isaiah 50:2 Wherefore, when I came, was there no man? when I called, was there none to answer? Is my hand shortened at all, that it cannot redeem? or ha…
Isaiah 59:16 And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteou…
Hosea 7:14 And they have not cried unto me with their heart, when they howled upon their beds: they assemble themselves for corn and wine, and they reb…
Isaiah 27:5 Or let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me; and he shall make peace with me.
Isaiah 54:8 In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the LORD thy Redeemer…
Isaiah 59:2 But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.
Hosea 7:7 They are all hot as an oven, and have devoured their judges; all their kings are fallen: there is none among them that calleth unto me.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Isaiah 64:6–end
As we have the Lamentations of Jeremiah, so here we have the Lamentations of Isaiah; the subject of both is the same - the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans and the sin of Israel that brought that destruction - only with this difference, Isaiah sees it at a distance and laments it by the Spirit of prophecy, Jeremiah saw it accomplished. In these verses,
I. The people of God in their affliction confess and bewail their sins, thereby justifying God in their afflictions, owning themselves unworthy of his mercy, and thereby both improving their troubles and preparing for deliverance. Now that they were under divine rebukes for sin they had nothing to trust to but the mere mercy of God an…
stirreth--rouseth himself from spiritual drowsiness.
take hold-- (Isa 27:5).
Adam Clarke on Isaiah 64:7
There is none - Twelve MSS. have אין ein, without the conjunction ו vau prefixed; and so read the Chaldee and Vulgate.
And hast consumed us because of our iniquities "And hast delivered us up into the hands of our iniquities" - For ותמוגנו vattemugenu, "hast dissolved us," the Septuagint, Syriac, and Chaldee had in their copies תמגננו temaggenenu, "hast delivered us up." Houbigant. Secker.
John Gill on Isaiah 64:7
And there is none that calleth upon thy name,.... Upon the Lord himself, who is gracious and merciful, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, and all sufficient, a God hearing and answering prayer, and the Father of his people; all which should engage to call upon him: or, "there is none that prays in thy name", as the Targum; none that prays to God in the name of his Son, the only Mediator between God and men; he is the way of access to the Father; his name is to be used and made mention of in prayer; acceptance is only through him, and all favours are conveyed by him; see John 14:13, not that there were absolutely none at all that prayed to God, and called upon or in his name, but compar…
The Church Fathers
"There is no one who calls on your name." Since they worshiped the idols, they did not remember your name. "There is no one who bestirs himself to take hold of you." They certainly put all their faith in the idols.
(Verse 7) There is no one who calls upon your name, who rises and holds on to you. You have hidden your face from us and have afflicted us in the hand of our iniquity. LXX: And there is no one who calls upon your name and remembers to grasp you. For you have turned your face away from us and have delivered us because of our iniquities. Like leaves from the trees, we have flowed and the dry wind has scattered us, therefore no one was found who would call upon your name and rising from the ruin of their iniquities, would grasp or hold on to you, and would say with the bride: I have found him whom my soul sought: I will hold on to him, and I will not let him go (Song of Solomon 3:4). The wind is mentioned in the Scriptures in three ways; either in the magnitude of temptations, or in the perversity of doctrine, or simply as the wind, by which clouds gather and the air is forced into clouds. Concerning temptations, there is this Gospel passage: The rivers came, the winds blew, and they beat against that house, but it did not collapse, because it was founded on a solid rock (Matthew 7:27). Concerning the perversity of doctrine: So that we may no longer be tossed around by every wind of doctrine in the wickedness of men (Ephesians 4:14). On wind in general: And they could not sail, for the wind was contrary (Mark 6:48): not that this cannot be understood metaphorically, but only that it bears a resemblance to our present experience. For when the Lord turns his face away from us, we are thrown into the hand of our own wickedness, or we are delivered to temptations because of our sins. From this we learn that wickedness also has a hand, and all the sins that strongly desire to keep us tightly bound. And in the hand of the tongue is both death and life (Prov. XVIII); and the holy one prays: Let not the foot of pride come to me (Psal. XXXV, 12). But we, because the Lord has turned his face away from us, knowing that which is written: Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved (Joel. II, 32), let us call upon his name and say: I have confessed my sin to you, and I have not covered up my iniquity. I said I will confess my iniquity to the Lord, and you forgave the impiety of my heart (Psal. XXXI, 56). And immediately we will have the Lord responding: I have blotted out your iniquities as a cloud, and your sins as a mist (Isaiah XLIV, 22), and we will say,…
Dictionary and topics
Afflicted Saints · Should acknowledge the justice of their chastisements — Should acknowledge the justice of their chastisements
Prayerlessness · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
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).
There is none that calleth on thy name. He confirms what was formerly said; for he exhorts believers, even though God's punishment of them appears to be severe, still to believe that they deserve such a punishment. Heinous sins are mentioned by him; and though it would be tedious to go over all of them in detail, he points out the fountain itself, and says that the worship of God is neglected. Under the word "calleth on," he includes, as is customary in Scripture, the whole worship of God; for the most important part of God's worship is to "call upon" him, and to testify our confidence in him. Prayers and supplications, undoubtedly, were always practiced among them; but, because the heart wa…
This was the case when the measure of Israel's sins had become full. They were carried into exile, where they sank deeper and deeper. The great mass of the people proved themselves to be really massa perdita, and perished among the heathen. But there were some, though a vanishingly small number, who humbled themselves under the mighty hand of God, and, when redemption could not be far off, wrestled in such prayers as these, that the nation might share it in its entirety, and if possible not one be left behind. With ועתּה the existing state of sin and punishment is placed among the things of the past, and the petition presented that the present moment of prayer may have all the significance o…
you have turned away from us: See 1:15; 30:20; 59:2. • turned us over to our sins: Because the people were so bent on sinning, God left them to perish in their sinful ways (see Rom 1:24).
Rashi on Isaiah 64:6
arouses himself Like ‘overpowers his temptation.’
and You caused us to wander Heb. וַתְּמוּגֵנוּ, You caused us to wander.
