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
Daniel 12:4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be inc…
Hebrews 3:5 And Moses verily was faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after;
Deuteronomy 4:45 These are the testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgments, which Moses spake unto the children of Israel, after they came forth out of…
Isaiah 29:11-12 And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this,…
Matthew 13:11 He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.
Mark 4:10-11 And when he was alone, they that were about him with the twelve asked of him the parable.
Mark 4:34 But without a parable spake he not unto them: and when they were alone, he expounded all things to his disciples.
1 Corinthians 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Isaiah 8:16–end
In these verses we have,
I. The unspeakable privilege which the people of God enjoy in having the oracles of God consigned over to them, and being entrusted with the sacred writings. That they may sanctify the Lord of hosts, may make him their fear and find him their sanctuary, bind up the testimony, Isa 8:16. Note, It is a great instance of God's care of his church and love to it that he has lodged in it the invaluable treasure of divine revelation. 1. It is a testimony and a law; not only this prophecy is so, which must therefore be preserved safely for the comfort of God's people in the approaching times of trouble and distress, but the whole word of God is so; God has attested it, and he…
Bind up . . . seal--What Isaiah had before briefly noted by inscribing Maher-shalal-hash-baz in a tablet, fixed up in some public place, he afterwards wrote out more in detail in a parchment roll (Isa 30:8); this he is now to seal up, not merely in order that nothing may be added to, or taken from it, as being complete, but to imply that it relates to distant events, and is therefore to be a sealed and not understood testimony (Isa 6:9-10), except in part among God's "disciples," that is, those who "sanctify the Lord" by obedient trust (Psa 25:14). Subsequent revelations would afterwards clear up what now was dark. So the Apocalypse explains what in Daniel was left unexplained (compare Dan 8…
Bind up the testimony,.... These are not the words of the prophet, as Kimchi thinks, but of the Lord to the prophet, and are part of that instruction given him, Isaiah 8:11. By "the testimony" is meant the word of prophecy delivered to him; particularly that evangelical part of it respecting Immanuel, who was to be born of a virgin, and would be for a sanctuary to them that believe in him, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, to unbelievers; so the Gospel is called the testimony of Christ, it bearing witness of his person, office, and grace, 2 Timothy 1:8 and "binding" denotes care of it, as something valuable, that it be not lost, but committed to the trust faithful men, called…
The Church Fathers
(Verse 16, 17.) Join the testimonies, establish the law among my disciples, and I will wait for the Lord, who hides his face from the house of Jacob, and I will hope in him. The voice of the Lord speaking to the Prophet: because, he said, the Lord has become a stumbling stone and a rock of offense to the two houses of Israel, and they did not want to receive Emmanuel sent to them. Join the testimonies of the old Testament, and give them to my disciples, who have received the Gospel, namely the Apostles or the apostolic men. Certainly, the law and the prophets are bound up until John among them (Matthew 11), and it is closed and sealed so that they do not understand what they read. For, according to the ambiguity of the Hebrew language, we can interpret doctrines for the disciples. Therefore, the Prophet responded: because with the succession of the Gospel, the Law was closed and sealed among the Jews, and you command that it should be assigned not to the Jews, but to the Gentiles. Therefore, I will wait for Emmanuel, whom you have promised to come, about whom you said above that he himself will be our fear and our terror, and for us he will be for sanctification; and I will wait for the Lord who hides his face from the house of Jacob, that is, from the Jews, because they did not want to receive him. The Seventy translated this passage as follows: Then those who are marked will be revealed, so that they may not learn the law. This has the meaning that when many have fallen and have been crushed, and have stumbled against the stone of offense and the rock of scandal, then those who are marked in the people will be revealed, so that they may by no means learn the law of Moses; but rather obey the precepts of the gospel.
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
Seal — Commonly a ring engraved with some device (Gen. 38:18, 25). Jezebel “wrote letters in Ahab’s name, and sealed them with his seal” (1 Kings 21:8). Seals are frequently mentioned in Jewish history…
Testimony — (1.) Witness or evidence (2 Thess. 1:10). (2.) The Scriptures, as the revelation of God’s will (2 Kings 11:12; Ps. 19:7; 119:88; Isa. 8:16, 20). (3.) The altar raised by the Gadites and Reubenites…
Witness — More than one witness was required in criminal cases (Deut. 17:6; 19:15). They were the first to execute the sentence on the condemned (Deut. 13:9; 17:7; 1 Kings 21:13; Matt. 27:1; Acts 7:57, 58).…
Seal · .Covenants — .Covenants
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).
Bind up the testimony. The Lord now turns his discourse to the Prophet, and encourages him, while he must contend against apostates and rebels, to discharge his office with boldness and perseverance. This was highly necessary, for Isaiah had met with great obstinacy in the people; so that if he had only looked at their present condition, that is, at the unbelief of the people, and his fruitless and unsuccessful exertions, he must have altogether given way. On this account the Lord determined to confirm and seal his calling, not only on his account, but for the sake of all who should obey his doctrine; and if very few persons believed the words of the Prophet, still the Lord testifies that hi…
The words that follow in Isa 8:16, "Bind up the testimony, seal the lesson in my disciples," appear at first sight to be a command of God to the prophet, according to such parallel passages as Dan 12:4, Dan 12:9; Rev 22:10, cf., Dan 8:26; but with this explanation it is impossible to do justice to the words "in my disciples" (b'ilmmudâi). The explanation given by Rosenmller, Knobel, and others, viz., "by bringing in men divinely instructed" (adhibitis viris piis et sapientibus), is grammatically inadmissible. Consequently I agree with Vitringa, Drechsler, and others, in regarding Isa 8:16 as the prophet's own prayer to Jehovah. We tie together (צרר, imperf. צור = צר) what we wish to keep fr…
The command to preserve Isaiah’s teaching suggests that it was harshly received by his contemporaries, who might have wanted to snuff it out. Faithful disciples safely preserved the prophet’s messages.
8:16 instructions (Hebrew torah): The Torah defined Israel’s covenant relationship with God, but the people were quick to forget (see also 1:10).
Rashi on Isaiah 8:16
Bind this warning All this is part of the prophecy stated above (v. 11): “For so has the Lord said to me,” and He said further to me, “Bind this warning (תְּעוּדָה),” an expression similar to (Deut. 8: 19): “I warn (הַעִדֹּתִי) you today,” an expression of warning. Bind My warning and seal the Torah on the heart of My disciples. Your disciples who fear My Name are called “disciples of the Lord.” And if you say that the expression of binding does not apply to the study of the Torah, it does indeed apply, as it is said (Prov. 6:21): “Bind them upon your heart always.”
