Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Isaiah 42:14

I have long time holden my peace; I have been still, [and] refrained myself: [now] will I cry like a travailing woman; I will destroy and devour at once.

14. I have long time holden my peace ] Lit. “I have been silent from of old.” The period of silence perhaps goes back further than the Exile; it is the time during which Jehovah has permitted the oppression of His people by the heathen.

I have been still ] Lit. “been dumb”; but “still” expresses the idea better; it is abstinence from action, not from speech, that is meant.

refrained myself ] Cf. Gen 43:31; Gen 45:1.

now will I cry out ] The verb does not recur in the O.T. In Aramaic it is used of the bleating of sheep. Here it denotes the convulsive utterance of uncontrollable emotion, “like a travailing woman.”

destroy and devour at once ] Render with R.V. gasp and pant together; “together” uniting the three ideas.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

14 17. Jehovah rouses Himself from His inactivity. The passage, which obviously continues the figure of Isa 42:13, is exceedingly bold in its anthropomorphism; it is Jehovah’s battle-song.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

I have long time holden my peace – This is the language of Yahweh, and it means that he had for a long time been patient and forbearing; but that now he would go forth as a warrior to overpower and destroy his foes.

I will destroy – The word used here (from nasham) denotes properly to breathe hard, to pant, as a woman in travail; and then to breathe hard in any manner. It here denotes the hard breathing which is indicative of anger, or a purpose to execute vengeance.

And devour at once – Margin, Swallow, or Sup up. The word sha’aph means rather to breathe hard, to pant, to blow, as in anger, or in the haste of pursuit. The idea in the verse is, that Yahweh had for a long time restrained his anger against his foes, and had refrained from executing vengeance on them. But now he would rouse his righteous indignation, and go forth to accomplish his purposes in their destruction. All this language is descriptive of a hero or warrior; and is, of course, not to be regarded as applicable literally to God. He often uses the language of people, and speaks of his purposes under the image of human passions. But we are not to infer that the language is literally applicable to him, nor is it to be interpreted too strictly. It means, in general, that God would go forth with a fixed and settled purpose to destroy his foes.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Isa 42:14

I have long time holden My peace

The Divine thought and pain

Remember it is God who speaks these words of Himself, and then think of what they mean of unshareable thought and pain, of solitary yearning and effort.

But from the pain comes forth at last the power (Isa 42:15). (Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D.)

The destruction of sinners sudden and inevitable

God long bears with the provocations of men, and therefore they imagine He pays no attention to their deeds; but they are deceived; the time of His forbearance is limited.

I. THE FORBEARANCE OF GOD. I have long time holden My peace. God, unlike man, is neither hasty, impetuous, nor resentful. Sinners cannot justly complain that God does not afford them time for repentance; God has long borne with the ingratitude and perverseness of sinful men; their crimes are numerous, their provocations great. This period of Gods forbearance and compassion is a season of grace and mercy.

II. THE DIVINE FORBEARANCE WILL NOT LAST FOR EVER. It will surely terminate, and then commences the awful, though long delayed, hour of vengeance. (S. Ramsey, M. A.)

I will destroy and devour at once

God terrible yet gracious

(with Isa 42:15-16):–The solemn practical truth of the text is that God can do the most terrible things and the most gentle; that power belongeth unto God and also mercy. Look at the doctrine of the text–

I. IN RELATION TO BAD MEN WHO PRIDE THEMSELVES UPON THEIR SUCCESS AND THEIR STRENGTH. The doctrine is that there is a power beyond mans, and that nothing is held safely which is not held by consent of that Power. The so-called success of the bad man has yet to stand the strain of Divine trial. Though his strength be as a mountain, it shall be wasted; and the world shall see how poorly they build who build only for the light and quietness of summer. Remember, we are not stronger than our weakest point, and that true wisdom binds us to watch even the least gate that is insufficient or insecure.

II. AS AN ENCOURAGEMENT TO ALL MEN WHO WORK UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF GOD. God declares Himself gentle to those who truly need Him. He promises nothing to the self-sufficient; He promises much to the needy. The text shows the principle on which Divine help is given to men,–the principle of conscious need and of willingness to be guided. A trueapprehension of this doctrine will give us a new view of daily providences, namely, that men who are apparently most destitute may in reality be most richly enjoying the blessings of God. Clearly, we are not to judge human life by outward conditions. Blindness may not be merely so much defect, it may be but another condition of happiness. It is because we are blind that He will lead us. It is because we are weak that He will carry us. It is because we have nothing that He offers to give us all things. (J. Parker, D. D.)

Gods terribleness and gentleness

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. It is better to fall into the hands of God than into the hands of men. Our God is a consuming fire–God is love. The combination of great power and great restraint, and, indeed, the combination of opposite qualities and uses generally, is well known in the ordinary arrangements of civilised life and the daily operation of the laws of nature. The measure of greatness is the measure of terribleness. What is constructiveness but the beneficent side of destructiveness? The fire that warms the chamber when properly regulated, will, if abused, reduce the proudest palaces to ashes. The river, which softens and refreshes the landscape, if allowed to escape its banks, may devastate the most fruitful fields. The engine, which is swiftly bearing the laughing child to his longed-for home, will, if mismanaged, occasion the most terrible havoc. The lightning, which may be caught and utilised by genius and skill, can burn the forest, and strike armies blind. We are familiar with such illustrations of united opposites, and our knowledge of them inspires our enterprise, and attempers with prudence the noble audacity of practical science . . . (J. Parker, D. D.)

True conceptions of God important in character-building

God is not to be described in parts; He is to be comprehended in the unity of His character. A child, describing the lightning might say, It was beautiful, so bright, and swifter than any flying bird, and so quiet that I could not hear it as it passed through the air; this would be true. A tree might say, It was awful, it tore off branches that had been growing for a hundred years, it rent me in twain down to the very root, and no summer can ever recover me–I am left here to die; this also would be true. So with Almighty God; He is terrible in power, making nothing of all that man counts strong, yet He will not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax. Men are bound to be as common-sense in their theology as they are in the ordinary works of life, and in building character they are to be at least as forethoughtful and sagacious as in building their houses of stone. How do we conduct our arrangements in building a house? Suppose that it were possible for a man never to have seen any season but summer, and suppose such a man called upon to advise in the erection of a building: you can imagine his procedure; everything is to be light, because he never heard a high wind; water-pipes may be exposed, for he never felt the severity of frost; the most flimsy roof will be sufficient, for he knows nothing of the great rains of winter and spring. Tell such a man that the winds will become stormy, that the rivers will be chilled into ice, that his windows will be blinded with snow, and that floods will beat upon his roof, and if he is a wise man he will say, I must not build for one season, but for all seasons; I must not build for fine days, but for days that will be tempestuous; I must, as far as possible, prepare for the most inclement and trying weather. That is simple common sense. Why be less sensible in building a character than in building a house? We build our bricks for severity as well as for sunshine, why build our characters with less care? If in summer we think about the frost, why not in prosperity have some thought for adversity? If in July we prepare for December, why not in the flattering hour of exultation think of the judgment that is at once infallible and irresistible? As he would be infinitely foolish who should build his house without thinking of the natural forces that will try its strength, so is he cursed with insanity who builds his character without thinking of the fire with which God will try every mans work of what sort it is. (J. Parker, D. D.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 14. I have been still – “Shall I keep silence for ever”] After meolam, in the copy which the Septuagint had before them, followed the word , heleolam, ‘ according to MSS. Pachom. and I. D. II. and Edit. Complut., which word, haleolam, has been omitted in the text by an easy mistake of a transcriber, because of the similitude of the word preceding. Shall I always keep silence? like that of Juvenal: Semper ego auditor tantum? Shall I always be a hearer only?

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

I have long time held my peace; I have for many ages suffered the devil and his servants, tyrants, and idolaters, and persecutors to prevail in the world, to afflict my people, and to hinder the entertainment of my doctrine and worship in the world.

Now will I cry like a travailing woman; now I will bring forth and accomplish that glorious work which I have long conceived in my mind.

I will destroy and devour at once; I will suddenly and utterly destroy the incorrigible enemies of my truth, and of my Sons kingdom. He alludes to those wild beasts which open their mouths wide, and devour all their prey at one morsel, or at one time.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

14. long timenamely, duringthe desolation of Israel (Isa32:14).

holden my peace(ComparePsa 50:21; Hab 1:2).

cry like a travailing woman,c.Like a woman in parturition, who, after having restrained herbreathing for a time, at last, overcome with labor pain, lets out hervoice with a panting sigh so Jehovah will give full vent to His longpent-up wrath. Translate, instead of “destroy . . . devour”;I will at once breathe hard and pant, namely, giving loose toMy wrath.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

I have long time holden my peace,…. For many hundred years the Lord suffered the Gentile world to walk in their own ways, to worship their idols, and took no notice of them; he winked at and overlooked their times of ignorance, and did not bring down his vengeance upon them, nor stir up all his wrath; nor indeed did he send any among them, to reprove and convince them of their errors, and threaten them with “ruin”, in case of their continuance in them:

I have been still, and refrained myself; had been silent, and said nothing against them in a providential way, but curbed and kept in his wrath and displeasure at their idolatry, as a woman in travail “holds in” y her breath as long as she can; to which the allusion is, as appears by what follows:

now will I cry like a travailing woman; when sharp pains are upon her, and just going to be delivered; and that so loud as to be heard all over the house. This may be taken in a good sense; the ministers of the Gospel travail in birth, and Christ in them, until he is formed in the hearts of men by regenerating and converting grace, Ga 4:19 and in an ill sense; for swift and sudden destruction, which should come on his enemies, as travail on a woman with child. So the Targum,

“as pains on a woman with child, my judgment shall be revealed (or exposed) upon them.”

I will destroy and devour at once; all enemies that should oppose him in the spread of the Gospel, in the destruction of Paganism, and establishment of Christianity in the Roman empire, who are described in the next verse.

y “continebam me”, Pagninus, Montanus; “continui me”, Junius Tremellius, Vitringa “diu [continui] iram meam sicut halitum foeminae parturientis”, Grotius.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

The period of punishment has now lasted sufficiently long; it is time for Jehovah to bring forth the salvation of His people. “I have been silent eternally long, was still, restrained myself; like a travailing woman, I now breathe again, snort and snuff together.” The standpoint of these prophecies has the larger half of the captivity behind it. It has already lasted a long time, though only for several decades; but in the estimation of Jehovah, with His love to His people, this time of long-suffering towards their oppressors is already an “eternity” (see Isa 57:11; Isa 58:12; Isa 61:4; Isa 63:18-19; Isa 64:4, cf., Isa 64:10, Isa 64:11). He has kept silence, has still forcibly restrained Himself, just as Joseph is said to have done to prevent himself from breaking out into tears (Gen 43:31). Love impelled Him to redeem His people; but justice was still obliged to proceed with punishment.

Three real futures now take the place of imperfects regulated by . They are not to be understood as denoting the violent breathing and snorting of a hero, burning with rage and thirsting for battle (Knobel); nor is to be derived from , as Hitzig supposes, through a mistaken comparison of Eze 36:3, though the latter does not mean to lay waste, but to be waste (see Hitzig on Eze 36:3). The true derivation is from , related to , , . To the figure of a hero there is now added that of a travailing woman; is short breathing (with the glottis closed); the snorting of violent inspiration and expiration; the earnest longing for deliverance pressing upon the burden in the womb; and expresses the combination of all these several strainings of the breath, which are associated with the so-called labour-pains. Some great thing, with which Jehovah has, as it were, long been pregnant, is now about to be born.

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

14. I have kept silence. The Prophet meets the temptations which commonly give us great uneasiness, when God delays his aid. We are tempted by impatience, and dread that his promises are false. We reckon it unreasonable that God should be silent, and fall asleep, so to speak, while the wicked carry themselves high; that he should be cool, while they burn with eagerness to do mischief; and that he should wink at their crimes, while they keenly pursue every kind of cruelty. When their minds were distressed and almost overwhelmed, the Prophet wished to comfort them, that they might not think that God had forsaken them, though everything appeared to be desperate.

For a long time. He expressly mentions “the great length of time,” that their hearts might not languish through the tedious delay; for when they had been broken down by almost incessant calamities since the death of Jehoshaphat, it was very hard and distressing to spend seventy years in captivity. Nor was even this the end of their afflictions, and therefore they needed to be carefully admonished, that although God do not immediately send relief, still believers will suffer nothing by the delay, provided that they wait with patience. By these words he also rebukes unbelievers, who, trusting to his forbearance, freely indulged in every kind of wickedness; and therefore God declares that, although he has refrained and been a silent spectator, he is not on that account deprived of his power.

Like a woman in labor. By this metaphor he expresses astonishing warmth of love and tenderness of affection; for he compares himself to a mother who singularly loves her child, though she brought him forth with extreme pain. It may be thought that these things are not applicable to God; but in no other way than by such figures of speech can his ardent love towards us be expressed. He must therefore borrow comparisons from known objects, in order to enable us to understand those which are unknown to us; for God loves very differently from men, that is, more fully and perfectly, and, although he surpasses all human affections, yet nothing that is disorderly belongs to him.

Besides, he intended also to intimate that the redemption of his people would be a kind of birth, that the Jews might know that the grave would serve them for a womb, and that thus, in the midst of corruption, they might entertain the hope of salvation. Although he produced a new Church for himself without pain or effort, yet, in order to exhibit more fully the excellence of his grace in this new birth, he not inappropriately attributes to himself the cry of “a woman in labor.”

I will destroy and swallow at once. Because that comparison of a travailing woman might somewhat degrade the majesty and power of God, the Prophet determined to add here a different feeling. So far then as relates to love, he says that God resembles a mother; so far as relates to power, he says that he resembles a lion or a giant.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

GODS TERRIBLENESS AND GENTLENESS

Isa. 42:14-16. I will destroy and devour at once, &c.

The measure of greatness is the measure of terribleness; constructiveness is the beneficent side of destructiveness.
The fire that warms will, if abused, reduce the palace to ashes; the river which gladdens the landscape may devastate it; the engine that bears the laughing child to his longed-for home will, if mismanaged, occasion terrible havoc; the lightning, which may be caught and utilised, can burn the forest and strike armies blind.
In the text we are confronted with the highest expression of the same truth; the Terrible One is gentler than the gentlest friend. Power belongeth unto God as well as mercy; He is either glorious as heaven or fearful as hell. The terribleness of God is the good mans security; he does not say, I must worship Him or He will destroy me; but, the beneficent side of that power is all mine.
I. Look at the doctrine of the text in relation to bad men, who pride themselves upon their success and their strength. Daily life has always been a problem to devout wisdom; virtue has often been crushed while vice has flourished. But there is a power beyond mans; and nothing is held safely that is not held by consent of that power. God cannot be described in parts; He is to be studied in the unity of His character. Men are bound to be as common-sense in their theology as in the ordinary works of life; in building character they should be at least as sagacious as in building houses; they must build for tempestuous as well as for fine weather. We prepare for the severe side of Naturewhy ignore the severe aspect of God? This is not preaching the mere terrors of the Lord; it is being simply faithful to facts. The so-called success of the bad man has yet to stand the strain of the Divine trial. God will examine our title-deeds. Remember, we are not stronger than our weakest point.

II. Look at the doctrine as an encouragement to all men who work under the guidance of God. I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not, &c. God declares Himself gentle to those who truly need Him. He promises nothing to the self-sufficient; He promises much to the needy. A true apprehension of this doctrine will give us a right view of daily providences, viz., that men who are apparently most destitute may in reality be most richly enjoying the blessings of God.

We ought not to overlook the beneficent law of compensation. Blindness may be but another condition of happiness. Defects are the express conditions on which offers of Divine help are founded; it is because we are blind that He will lead us. It is clear, then, that self-sufficiency on the part of man is an offence to God; not only so, it is a vexation to man himself,all his efforts at independence end in mortification. Towards one another we are to be self-reliant; towards God we are to be humble, dependent, all-trustful. The removal of the mountains and hills that bar our way is Gods own work; why should we meddle with it as if we could do it better than He? The devil says, Be your own God, and we snatch at the suggestion as a prize. Behold! we call you to a God whose very terribleness may be turned into an assurance of safety, and whose love is infinite, unchanging, eternal!

CONCLUSION.Men of business! Know ye that prosperity is the gift of God, and that He who gave it can also withdraw it? I will destroy and devour it at once: I will dry up all their herbs (Psa. 37:35-36). Bread cannot satisfy unless it be broken by Gods hands.

Children of God! ye especially who are called to suffering, and weakness, and great unrest because of manifold defect, God offers you His hand. Rest on God. Fear God, and no other fear shall ever trouble you.Joseph Parker, D.D.: City Temple, pp. 227284.

THE LEADER OF THE BLIND

Isa. 42:16. And I will bring the blind, &c.

Christians, ye are not as yet come to the rest and the inheritance which the Lord your God giveth you. But thus far He has been your helper. What He has done is only a pledge of what He will do. To aid your grateful remembrance of the past and to confirm your confidence in the future, let us survey Him in three characters, which are all plainly set forth in our text.
I. AS OUR LEADER.
I will bring the blind by a way they know not; I will lead them in paths they have not known.

1. What could we do without such a Leader? Without God man is a poor wanderer on the mountains of ignorance, a prey to every danger, liable to be led astray by his prejudices and passions, certain to miss the only road to heaven.
2. Observe where He leads them: In paths they have not known. This is true
(1.) In regard to their temporal concerns. He has done so. If you look back, and contemplate the bounds of your habitation as fixed by Providence, your connections formed, your friends, your successes, your disappointments, does not all this appear now surprising? And He will do so. What can you know of the future? (P. D. 1432, 1440).

(2.) In regard to their spiritual concerns. They were not born Christians, but have been made such; and if now they differ from others, and from their former selves, it is because He hath called them out of darkness into His marvellous light. Once they knew nothing of conviction of sin, of hatred of sin, of faith in Christ, of prayer. And there are heights of holiness to which He will yet lead them by paths they have not now traversed.

II. AS OUR INTERPRETER.
I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight.

This is clearly distinguished from the former. You may lead the blind by a way they know not, and you may not explain it to them, but only tell them to depend upon you as a guide, while they are unconscious of anything except progress. But God illumines all whom He guides. Observe four instances in which He gradually makes darkness light before them and crooked things straight.

1. Doctrine (Joh. 7:17; Php. 2:15; H. E. I. 2877, 2878, 3127).

2. Experience. There are many things perplexing here.

(1.) Temptations that assail them are among the number, for they hoped to go on in their Christian course without annoyance. They did not remember that Pharaoh, as soon as Israel was gone, pursued, and tried to bring them back again. But presently He shows them that the Christians life must be a warfare (H. E. I. 1061, 47684776).

(2.) Prayer. They read that God answers prayer; they pray, but no answer comes. Very distressing. But presently He shows them that He is a God of judgment; that while His mercy would constrain Him to give, His wisdom leads Him to withhold the blessing for a time (H. E. I. 3897, 3898). Or if in answer to their prayers new and heavier trials are sent them, they are called presently to discern in them discipline and training for greater blessings beyond (H. E. I. 101, 2464, 2465, 36923695).

(3.) Joy. They sometimes do not experience the joy of which they read. He corrects their mistakes concerning it (H. E. I. 20642074, 30463051).

(4.) Assurance. He shows them that they are not to attach undue importance to it (H. E. I. 311314, 321323, 340346). He enables them in the end to rejoice in it.

3. Practical duties. Such as a Christians removal from his situation, or his transition from one business to another. In such matters the path of duty is made plain to the man who waits patiently upon God (Pro. 3:5-6).

4. Gods providential dealings. Gods way is sometimes in the sea, and His footsteps are not known. But sometimes the darkness is dispelled even now, and the Christian sees why he was exercised with such a soul-trouble. Take the case of Joseph (Gen. 45:5-8), or of David (Psa. 119:67).

III. AS HIS PEOPLES UNCHANGEABLE FRIEND.
These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.

1. They deserve to be forsaken, and this they will acknowledge readily enough (Lam. 3:22).

2. They may think themselves forsaken (Isa. 49:14; Psa. 77:7; Psa. 31:22).

3. At times He may so deal with them that, in the poverty of our language, we have to speak of them as men forsaken
(1.) In their outward condition (Hos. 5:15).

(2.) In regard to their enjoyment of spiritual comfort (Psa. 30:7; Psa. 119:82; H. E. I. 1260, 1261).

(3.) In giving them over to a sore conflict with temptation (H. E. I. 4774).

But all these apparent forsakings are short (Isa. 54:7), and they are never real. Even when they can discern no trace of Him, God is still with His people (Heb. 13:5; Rom. 8:35-39; see pp. 78, 79).William Jay: Sunday Morning Sermons, pp. 120129.

In relation to the movements of Divine Providence Gods people are blind.
What an infinite mercy it is for them that they have a Guide adapted and adequate to lead the blind! To teach the blind is an exercise of guidance unusual and peculiar; and he who can effectually accomplish this must have some important characteristic qualifications.
I. OUR LEADERS QUALIFICATIONS.

1. He who leads the blind must have a perfect knowledge of the way. In this respect a blind man can contribute no help and supply no lack. If his guide be ignorant even of a single step of the way, all his other qualifications are vain.

2. He must have a faithful regard to the end. He must display no treachery; the blind are utterly without remedy against any supposable unfaithfulness; their leader must steadfastly keep the end in view, and suffer nothing to turn him aside from the path that conducts to it.

3. He must pay a constant attention to the path. He must indulge in no carelessness. When a guide is careless, it is practically as though there were none. God neither slumbers nor sleeps; innumerable as the objects are which demand His notice, He never withdraws His eye for a moment from the steps of those He loves.

4. He must exercise towards them tender sympathy. The blind are naturally timid; surrounded with uncertainties, they are apt to be full of fears. Such fears are unreasonable, but it would be cruel to treat them with harshness. Above all guides, God might say, Now you know you have every reason to trust me; let me see no signs of timidity; step boldly in the way I lead you. He is not angry, however, with the sinking heart and the fearful step (Isa. 41:10; Isa. 43:2; Psa. 103:14; Heb. 13:5). Shall we not say cheerfully, Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel?

II. THE DUTY OF THOSE WHO ARE LED.
While God leads His people as the blind are led, they ought to walk as the blind who are led; for if the leading of the blind is peculiar, the walking of the blind when led is peculiar too. In the walk of the led blind we may notice

1. A practical acceptance of the guidance offered them. The attitude of Gods people should be one of grateful practical acceptance. Thou shalt guide me; and where Thou leadest I will go.

2. A spirit of entire submission to his guide. He feels that it is not for him to ask the question at intervals, Is this really the right way? He feels, above all, that it is not for him to be petulant, and to say, I will not go this way. And such should the attitude of Gods people be.

3. An unrelaxing grasp. The blind man never for an instant leaves hold of his guide. And not a single step should be taken by Gods people without reference to His discretion.

4. An aspect of cheerful confidence. A blind man who is feeling his own way walks cautiously and anxiously; but a blind man who is led for the most part walks promptly and cheerfully. He has trusted and is in peace. So should the Christian pursue his way, cheerfully and confidingly (P. D. 2970, 2971).J. H. Hinton, M.A.: The Church, New Series, vol. ix. pp. 15.

THE BLIND BEFRIENDED

Isa. 42:16. I will bring the blind, &c.

I. TO WHOM THE PROMISE IS MADE.
Not to every blind man, nor to all sorts of blind people; for there are some blind people whom God does not lead. They are those who are consciously blind, and who confess that once on a time they were totally blindthat what they thought was sight before was all delusion; people that feel their own weakness, their own want of knowledge, their own nothingness; people that are willing to be led; people that cannot see everything, and do not expect to see everything, but are willing to walk by faith in the unseen God, and to trust Jehovah where they cannot trace His footsteps.
II. THE PROMISE THAT IS MADE TO THEM. I will bring not known.

1. God Himself will be the Guide of His people when they feel their blindness. To lead blind men is not an office generally sought; it is not supposed to be attended with any great honour; but it is a very kindly office, and one which any Christian man may be right glad to render to his afflicted friend. But only think of God Himself coming and guiding the blindleading His blind children! He will not leave you to stumble and grope your way, nor will He bid you depend upon your fellow-Christian, who is as blind as yourself, but HE will be your Guide. Think of it.

2. Being their Guide, He will lead them in ways they never went before. I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not. [1372] By the paths of repentance, faith, holiness of life.

[1372] The beauty of the promise appears in its especial adaptation to meet the peculiar exigence: I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not. Of course, when a blind man knows the way, he can almost go without the guide. Many of our friends afflicted with the loss of sight find their way day by day along the accustomed road; and there have been some that have been so expert, though blind, that they could go over fifty miles of country, or thread their way in town up and down the streets of a milkmans walk, serving at each customers house without ever making a mistake. In fact, they have often acted as guides to others; but then it has always been along a way that they have known.Spurgeon.

3. Although the way by which we go be a way that we know not, we shall be led safely in it; for it is not only said, I will lead them, but I will bring them, which is more. [1375] You may lead a man, but he may be unable to follow you. We shall be safely led, even though we may be sometimes conducted along narrow paths, and not along the broad and frequented highways.

[1375] The safety follows from the fact that God is the Guide, rather than necessarily from the words of the promise. Alexander translates: I will make the blind walk in a way they knew not; in paths they knew not I will make them tread; the meaning being, that God would accomplish the deliverance of His people by a mode of His own choosing, to which they would have to conform.Spurgeon.

III. WHAT SHALL COME OF IT? I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight.

1. If you are in the darkness of trouble, trust in God and the trouble will vanish. The light of His countenance will chase away the darkness. The trouble may remain, but it will no longer distress you.
2. There is a crook in every lot, but trust in God. He can make the most crooked thing that ever did happen suddenly turn out to be the very straightest thing that ever occurred for our welfare.

IV. WHAT WILL BE THE END OF IT? The end of it will be (if you can see nothing, if you are blind, and leave yourself to the Lord to lead you, leaving all that concerns you to His counsel and His care), your life will be strewn with mercies, fulfilled promises; These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them. You shall find God present with you as long as you live. You will never be able to say, I rested in Him, and was confounded; I trusted in Him, and found His promise fail. [1378]C. H. Spurgeon: Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vol. xxii. pp. 468480.

[1378] Never does a child of God venture everything by faith but the faith answers. I was greatly refreshed yesterday by what may seem to you a very small thing, but it was not small to God. I was turning over our church books and I came to the year 1861, and somewhere in January there is a record, This church requires 4000 in order to pay for the New Tabernacle, and we, the undersigned, not knowing where it will come from, fully believe in our Heavenly Father that He will send it all to us in the proper time, as witness our hands. And there stood subscribed my hand, and the hands of my deacons, and the hands of my elders, and the hands of a great many Christian women amongst us. Well, I was pleased to see that we had thus put our confidence in God. There were one or two names down there of very prudent brethren, and I recollect at the time I saw them sign it I was rather surprised, because they had been doubting most of the time whether we should ever get the money; but they signed their names like men. A month or two alterwardssay two monthsthere is this record: I, Charles Haddon Spargeon, who am less than the least of all saints, set to my seal that God is true, for He has supplied us with all this 4000. And then follows a fresh minute like this: We, the undersigned, hereby declare our confidence in Almighty God, who has done to us according to our faith, and sent us, even before the time we wanted it, all that was wanted. We are ashamed of ourselves to think that we even had a doubt, and we pray that we may always confide in. Him in all things henceforth and for ever. And then there is a long list of signatures. We have had a good many times to do something like that for large amounts, as a church, but has the Lord ever failed us yet? Never! And He never will, and you may depend upon it that in your business, in your household affairs, in your spiritual struggles, if you will trust God, He will be as good as your trust, and better.Spurgeon.

A blind man in a strange city dare not move. How valuable as well as kind if some one take him by the hand! You are compelled to travel in a country with which you are entirely unacquainted. There are many cross roads and few indications of the paths you should take. Some one overtakes you and shows you the path which conducts to your destination, but which, without his leading, you could probably not have found. It is night. Impenetrable darkness surrounds. You dare not move, lest you should plunge into some dangerous place; for it is a wild moorland. But the morning breaks. The sun begins to shine. The light is in your way. There is a crooked road which must be straightened before you can prosper. You cannot straighten it. Lo! it becomes straight!
Is not mans path in this world one of darkness until God illuminates it? We are blind and ignorant. He alone can enlighten and inform us. He alone knows our way, and He has promised to lead us.

I. Look at this truth as illustrated by the history of the Church.

1. In Egypt the Israelites were blind. They groaned under their bondage, but saw no way of deliverance. But God did, and in due time He led them forth.
2. Through the wilderness they were led; they did not foresee the way. Even Moses did not arrange their movements. For great disciplinary reasons God kept them wandering forty years in an unexpected path. But He led them notwithstanding. There was the pillar of cloud and fire by day and by night.
3. In Babylon. It was a dark and dreary time. They hung their harps on the willows. They saw no possibility of restoration. But He knew of the Cyrus whom He would raise up, who would lead the besieging army, who would capture the city, who would proclaim deliverance. He knows beforehand the political movements of heathen courts, and how they will affect His Church.
4. From that time to the birth of Christ. The Jewish people in their own land. Wonderful control of circumstances by which the Advent occurred according to ancient promise.
5. Thus in the Church of Christ to the present time. Early Church led in a way quite other than the Apostles would have chosen. Through many vicissitudes the Christian Church has been brought. Yet her great Head has brought her through. Openings have been made for the gospel in unexpected ways. Thus it will be. We are blind. We know not how the final triumph of Christ will be secured, but it will be secured.

II. Look at this truth as illustrated by the spiritual experience of believers.

God has a people in this world. Some of them may not yet have been called from it. They are in the blindness of heathenism or indifference and sin. Gods time comes. Paul sets forth on his missionary journeys, Williams to the South Seas, Moffat to Africa. Souls are brought into contact with the truth. Christian households are formed. Some are called in early life under parental influence; some resist and continue for years in a course of sin; an unexpected sickness or disaster awakens, or God blesses some sermon (H. E. I. 1414, 1415). You did not know the way of salvation. Human wisdom did not devise it. You could never have discovered it. He brought it near. He led you to His feet, and began in your soul the strange new life.

And thus He is leading you to heaven. His Word and Spirit conduct by paths hitherto unknown. Sometimes through pleasant fields of promise, of communion, of holy aspiration, of Christian work; sometimes through dark passages of sorrow and perplexity; now awakening the slumbering conscience, now soothing the troubled heart. Thus He will continue (Psa. 107:7).

III. Look at this truth as illustrated by the course of Divine Providence.

How often are the Lords people brought into complete distress and uncertainty! They dare not move a foot lest it should be a fatal mistake. Then, when He has brought them to the realisation of their entire dependence on Him, and to cast themselves on Him in simple faith, He opens an unexpected way, by means quite unlikely. Jacob thus led into Egypt, where he finds the long-lost Joseph. Peter delivered by the angel from prison. Pauls desire to see Rome gratified, not as he planned, but by his going as a prisoner. You are not to-day where you expected to be at the outset of your career. Recall your changes and deliverances.
Does not this subject teach the lesson of simple trust? Is it dark with you to-day? It is not so with Him. He knows why your sky is overcast. He may have blessings in store which could not otherwise come. Comfort your hearts with His promises. Gather up your courage. Let faith look through the cloud at His guiding hand.J. Rawlinson.

A blind man touches the sympathies of those who see his condition. They become at once ready to help him. To God we are all blind. We see nothing as He sees it; and unless He lead, we cannot go. But His gracious promise is, I will bring the blind, &c.

I. The fulfilment of this promise has been splendidly exhibited in Gods dealings with our general humanity. How remarkable is that mystery of His gracious providence, that the most important things in the universe should come out of their very opposites!e.g., that the greatest material prosperity should come out of the greatest spiritual aspiration. And yet this has been the history of the world. The only people able to hold itself unpulverised in the conflicts of nations is the one nation set apart wholly to the service of religion. When men try to further the world, enlarge its commerce, increase its mass of material wealth by devoting themselves only to the things which are seen, they become utterly degraded. On the contrary, material things used for spiritual ends gain new splendours. A house consecrated to God becomes a home. Bread eaten rather for the uses of the spirit that is in the body than for the body itself becomes holy.

II. This promise is no less wonderfully fulfilled in Gods dealings with individual souls. No man knows the way. Science cannot find a door in the hard wall of the visible: God must reveal it. When a spirit undertakes to engineer its course, it naturally seeks to enter at a wide gate, and to go in the broad way. To all human appearance there is room there. But when God takes the hand of the soul, He carries it through a very narrow gate, and along a very strait way. From His throne He sees every possible way from Egypt to Canaan. The soul can only see its immediate surroundings, a sea in front, mountain walls on both hands, or a wide, pathless, and devouring desert. We do not know the paths. He does. He is offering to guide us. Let us not go blundering in our blindness, falling over a hundred obstacles for every clear step we make. Let us put our hands in His, who hath promised to lead us.

For one thing only, Lord, dear Lord, I plead;
Lead me aright,
Though strength should falter, and though heart should bleed,
Through peace to light.
I do not ask my cross to understand,
My way to see;
Better in darkness just to feel Thy hand,
And follow Thee.

The Study and the Pulpit, 1877, pp. 761, 762.

How rich in comfort we should be if we could get well into the thought of this text, and if we could get the thought well into us! As to our being blind, needing counsel and guidance, in constant danger of taking false and disastrous steps if we attempt to pursue our way alone, how often are we reminded of this!

1. There is the blindness that results from the limitation of our faculties.

2. Blindness that is due to our inexperience.

3. Blindness caused by our degradation.

The promise in our text is very consoling by the very closeness and completeness with which it takes hold of our condition. Not only does it assure us of the loving guidance of God in a general way, but in those cases also where the darkness is deepest, and where the blindness is total. Even the blind have sometimes their familiar paths, where they are safe as long as they keep to them. Here, however, the blind are to be brought by ways they know not: they are to be led in paths they have not known. A very special guidance must here be at work, coming in at the moment of deepest need, taking us by the hand and leading us on, just when even the ordinary knowledge that serves us on the familiar paths can be of no use to us. When the usual roadway ends, when the landmarks disappear, when the well-known signs are gone, and no accustomed object meets the eye, then the Divine Hand comes near to lead the trustful heart, and to direct it into the heavenly way, which otherwise it could not find.
The special thought before us, then, is, that God, in His providence, so orders the critical and decisive steps of His people, that they are safe, even when they cannot see the issues. Illustrate this by a few striking examples.

1. The case of Joseph. Trace the stages of his career. Even he does not dream of the steps that will lead to the fulfilment of his destiny. Yet in what marvellous ways, through a process which now we should term romantic, does he at last reach the goal! The full conviction of Joseph, that God had been working through all that wonderful history, is clearly stated in his memorable words to his brethren (Gen. 45:8).

2. The sojourn of Israel in Egypt. Consider the manner in which Jacob was drawn down to Egypt to begin that sojourn. Josephs history had affected, not himself only, but that of the whole family and the whole race of Israel. But how totally unable must the members of that family have been to perceive the critical nature of the successive steps of the history! How wonderful that so many long years after Jacob had given up his son Joseph as being dead, regarding it as the crowning grief of a very strange and sorrowful life, news should be brought him that his son was yet alive, and that he must go and see him before his death! Then consider what that journey from Hebron into Egypt meant. Roots up Jacob from his home in his last days to die in a strange land: inaugurates the life of Israel in Egypt, &c. Yet Jacob, too, could see the hand of God in all the strange history of the past, when he could survey it in its wholeness, and was sure also of the future guidance of the people. Among his dying words he said to Joseph, Behold, I die; but God shall be with you, and bring you again unto the land of your fathers.

3. Israels deliverance from Egypt. Strange process was that by which Moses was fitted to become their deliverer, &c. Similar illustrations might be easily traced in the lives of such men as David, Nehemiah, Daniel, and indeed most of the saints of Old and New Testament Scripture, all bearing out the truth we have previously statedthat Gods providence takes special care of the critical and decisive steps of His people, so that they are safely guided through the paths they did not and could not know.

Our text indicates, also, what these histories beautifully confirm

1. That happy surprises are in store for those who are thus Divinely led. I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight.

2. That the Divine purpose and fidelity are all-comprehensive. God does not break off in the middle of things, but fully completes what He begins. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.

Such a subject as this may well be applied to strengthen our faith and hope. It suggests such lessons as the following:

1. The leading is conducted by Infinite Wisdom and Love. Gods purpose is one of highest beneficence, and He cannot belie Himself. He who spared not His own Son, &c. (Rom. 8:32).

2. The leadings of God may often cross our wishes, and therefore we must follow in the spirit of trust. Trust is essential to the blind. To break away from the Guide in the spirit of self-will and rebellion is to invite disaster and endanger all that follows. Our safety lies in our self-surrender to God, in our childlike acceptance of His appointed way.

3. This trust is to be combined with the spirit of sincere and honest effort. It is no lazy and spurious resignation, which tamely submits to infirmities it ought to cure, and wearily bears the evils it ought to vanquish. That is not to be ledit is to be carried; and it is a decaying, a rotting religion that will not put its own feet to the. ground and bravely do its part. God guides those who will walk, who will follow. Through many a secret passage of life and over many an untrodden path will He at last bring us out into the open places, where He will make darkness light before us, and crooked things straight. These things will He do unto us, and not forsake us.William Manning.

The promises of God are not only exceeding great and precious, but exceedingly manifold and varied. Now the eye is caught by some single star, shining intensely bright in the midnight sky; and now a clustered constellation seems to burst on the sight. Look, for example, at the text. In it there are four distinct promises, each rising above the other in grace and consolation. They are made by God under the character of a Guide, and they represent Him as undertaking

1. To bring sinners into the right way.
2. To lead them in the way.
3. To remove difficulties out of the way.
4. To continue His guidance even unto the end.C. F. Childe: Sermons, pp. 232, 233.

LED BY UNKNOWN PATHS

Isa. 42:16. I will lead the blind by a way that they knew not, &c.

This is the language and promise of the Lord. He here speaks of Himself, and tells us what He will dothings strange and unknown, and perhaps unanticipated. It is impossible to have a just view of this text without adverting with some minuteness to its original application. But its meaning is no less spiritual than prophetical, and is as applicable to every soul as it was to the Gentile nations. This union of prophetical and spiritual meaning forms one of the most striking characteristics, and one of the greatest beauties, of the writings of this prophet. The prophetical meaning has been verified by centuries of history, and all that history now is a bold and open evidence that the spiritual meaning shall equally hold good. If the darkened Gentiles have been led, &c., the darkened sinner, if he will heed God, shall be led so too.
I. SOME ILLUSTRATIONS OF THIS PROPOSITION. When God leads men to true religion, He does lead them very differently from any and from all of their previous anticipations. This is true of every soul in many respects.

1. The thing, circumstance, or truth, whatever it may be, which first fixes the great matter of salvation upon the mind, is something very different from anything commonly anticipated. One man has one set of causes, and another another. So with the young, &c. If they are led to seek God at all, He leads them in a way they knew not. This forms among Christians one of the most common and cherished reasons for gratitude (H. E. I. 14101415).

2. The same thing will find illustration in the manner of a sinners forgiveness. Anxious inquirers are prone to think they must endure some more painful fears, or attain some righteousness which, somehow, shall be an offset to their guilt, before Gods pardon can ever reach them (Rom. 10:2-3). All this is in vain. If God leads them, they will see it is in vain. Salvation is a gift; and that God has led them in an unknown way, their own astonishment is evidence, when they have found peace in believing. Among the sweet and grateful recollections of believers, this leading of God has universally a place.

3. Perhaps the most remarkable of all illustrations of this truth is to be found in the experience of Christians. We should naturally expect them to have more correct expectations of Gods treatment than other people. But they are slow to learn; they are often disappointed; their anticipations are no foreshadowings of Gods treatment of them. Their comforts, their prosperity, and strength seldom come to them in the way of their anticipations; yea, very seldom, or never. The allotments of Divine Providence which affect them most are such as they little expected.

II. SOME REMARKS ON THIS SUBJECT.

1. God will make Himself known as infinitely above us. Be ashamed that you ever distrusted Him.
2. We must have faith. We cannot walk by sight.
3. If God is leading us on toward heaven, He will compel us to trust Him. We are blind. By faith darkness becomes light. Never point out a way for yourself. Take Gods way. Never despond. Trust Him. Accept His Son, and pillow your aching head upon His promises (P. D. 16521659).

4. This mode of Gods leading us is calculated to bring us most near to Himself. Has it not been so?
Do nothing but trust Him in His Son.Ichabod S. Spencer, D.D.: Sermons, vol. i. pp. 247262.

The great truth which the prophet plainly teaches is, that the whole course of each individual is so guided and arranged by an unseen, but not an unfelt hand, that, like a blind man, he is led by another. Pro. 16:9 is almost a commentary upon this passage.

Theres a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.

I. Illustrate this by a little introspective inspection of your inner and past history. Recall, as far as you are able, all you can recollect in your past biography. Is not your whole life, in warp and woof, totally different from anything you ever expected years ago? Like blind men, you have been led in a path that you knew not. This is the fulfilment of Gods prophecy. Did not an unforeseen accident, as the world would call it, alter the course of your career? A bereavementa sudden reversean accidental conversation or remark Will any man tell me that all these little incidents fraught with vast issues were chance? Is it not upon the minutest incidents that the most gigantic results often depend? What can be the explanation? God leads us (H. E. I. 32233226, 40154022).

But what is still more remarkable, God often takes the sins of His people, and out of those sins He elaborates their progress in likeness to Himself, and in fitness for the kingdom of heaven. Nothing so demonstrates the infinite compassion of God as this.

Apply the same great truths to those things that brought you to the Saviour. The heart wounded to the quick, only to apply to it a balm that heals it perfectly and forever. Instances of this in the Bible: The Samaritan woman (John 4); the Feast of Pentecost and Peters sermon (Acts 2); Saul visiting Damascus on an errand of proscription and blood (Acts 9); AbrahamJacobthe Shunamite woman. What are these but proofs that God leads the blind in a way that they know not? And what do they teach us? Stand still and see the salvation of God. Mans extremity is Gods opportunity.

II. Some useful practical inferences.

1. God is in everything. In all things. magnificently great, and microscopically minute. There is nothing so small that it is beneath His notice; there is nothing so great that He does not control (Mat. 10:30).

2. This God, that thus leads the blind by a way that they know not, is the Christians Father. If it were God only that is in all things, it would not be comfort; it would be awe, &c. Nothing can touch His children till He has given it its mission and its commission.

3. Do not hastily judge, when adversities overtake you, what the issue will be. We are prone to infer from what overtakes us now what must betide us always: such is not Christian logic. Whatever be the issue, all afflictions that overtake us have a present beneficent action. Never let us employ in estimating what God has done that unhappy monosyllable IF. These ifs are the steps of Godthe stages of Providence, &c. (Isa. 50:10). Therefore, whenever you cannot explain the circumstances that surround you, &c., remember that God your Father is leading you, a blind man, by ways that you do not know. Wait, trust, pray, hope, and God will make crooked things straight, and dark places light.J. Cumming, D.D.: Redemption Draweth Nigh, pp. 357369.

God has foreordained everything which He Himself will do (Act. 15:18). And He has been gradually unfolding His designs from the beginning. The restoration of the Jews from Babylon and the calling of the Gentiles into the Church were very wonderful events, but in them this prediction was fulfilled. It receives further accomplishment daily.

I. Gods dealings are mysterious.

1. The dispensations of His providence have been at all times dark.

2. The dispensations of His grace are equally inscrutable. This is seen in the first quickening of men from their spiritual death, and in their subsequent spiritual life.

II. His intentions are merciful. The perplexities of His people are often very great, but He has gracious designs in all (Jer. 29:11; Job. 42:12-13, with Jas. 5:11). Joseph (Gen. 37:6-10; Gen. 37:28; Gen. 39:17-20). The same mercy is discoverable in Gods dealings with all His afflicted people. He suffers their path to be for a time dark and intricate, but He invisibly directs and manages their concerns; He gradually removes their difficulties, and clears up their doubts (Gal. 3:23-24; Joh. 15:2; Mal. 3:3; Psa. 97:2). They are often ready to doubt His love, but

III. His regards are permanent. God did not forget His people when they were in Babylon, neither will He now forsake those who trust in Him (Isa. 44:7-8; Isa. 49:14-16; 1Sa. 12:22; Php. 1:6). The prophets declare this in the strongest terms (Isa. 54:9-10; Jer. 31:37; Jer. 32:40). St. Paul abundantly confirms their testimony (Rom. 11:29; Heb. 13:5-6).

INFERENCES.

1. How careful should we be not to pass a hasty judgment on the Lords dealings! (H. E. I. 40384048).
2. How safely may we commit ourselves to Gods disposal!C. Simeon, M.A.: Claudes Essay, &c., p. 229.

A PROMISE FOR THE PERPLEXED

Isa. 42:16. I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight.

This promise refers primarily to the manner in which God purposed to deliver His ancient people from bondage, by means at once unprecedented and complete; but it is surely available for all who, confessing their own blindness and powerlessness, cast themselves upon God for guidance and succour. Such persons may plead this promise in reference

1. To ignorance which they wish to have removed (Jas. 1:5).

2. To mysterious providences. Gods dealings with us and others are often incomprehensible, and inexplicable by us; but let us wait patiently, believingly, and prayerfully, and in due time this promise will be fulfilled (H. E. I. 40404058).

3. To Christian duty. The sincere Christian constantly asks, What is the will of God concerning me? But many difficulties may be in the way of deciding this question; a variety of points may require to be nicely adjusted; contrary claims may leave the balance of the scales almost in a state of equipoise; but in due season the sincere seeker for Divine direction shall be directed (Pro. 3:6).

4. To formidable difficulties that appear insurmountable. There is a crook in every lot; but in regard to the Christian all crooked things shall be made straight. They may give a great deal of trouble for a time, but in the end they will prove helpful and not hurtful to the patient believer.William Reeve: Miscellaneous Discourses, pp. 434440.

Sin has its fascinating lustre and flaring splendour; murky clouds often rest upon the way of righteousness and truth; but sins splendours go out in pitch darkness, while at eventide there is light for the Christian.

I. The believers darkness is turned into light, and the crooks of his lot are straightened.

1. The frequent grim darkness.

(1.) Much of it is of his own imagining. Many of our sorrows are purely homespun, and some minds are specially fertile in self-torture; they have the creative faculty for the melancholy; enjoyments even cause them to tremble lest they should be shortlived.
(2.) Much existing darkness is exaggerated. Joseph is not, Simeon is not; but Jacob pictured Joseph devoured of an evil beast, and Simeon given up to slavery in a foreign land. Take up the cross, and mountains will shrink to molehills.
(3.) Troubles disappear just when we expect them to become overwhelming. The waters of the Red Sea stood upright as a heap to make a pathway for Gods people. Who can tell what plan God may have in store for him? Hezekiah was sore dismayed before Rabshakeh. Little did he know that the talk and boasting were all that would come of it.
(4.) When the trial comes, God has a way of making His peoples trials cease just as they reach their culminating point. As the sea when it reaches to the flood pauses awhile and then returns to the ebb, so our sorrows rise to a height and then recede. Hear God bid Abraham sacrifice his son! He makes darkness light when the darkest hour of the night has struck.
(5.) Every trial was foreseen, and has been forestalled. God can furnish a table in the wilderness.

(6.) However severe the trial, God has promised that as our days our strength shall be. Considering that the grace is always proportioned to the trial, and that trials produce manliness, one might even choose trial for the sake of obtaining the grace which is promised with it; the mingled trial and grace will make our lives sublime.

(7.) Especially dwell upon the promise that the Lord will make your darkness light. How soon, and how perfectly, can Omnipotence accomplish this! How soon is it done in the physical universe! A fulness of consolation can be poured forth in a moment. How is it done? Sometimes by the sun of His providence. Often by the moon of Christian experience, which shines with borrowed light, but yet with sweet and tranquil brightness. Frequently by a sight of Jesus going before, and by hearing Him say, Follow me; fear not; for in all your afflictions I am afflicted. God had one Son without sin; but He never had a son without chastisement. And often by snatching a firebrand from the altar of His Word, and waving it as a torch before us, that we may advance in its light.

2. The crooks of the believers lot.

(1.) One may lie in your poverty.
(2.) Another in some very crooked calamity.
(3.) If he is free from these, he has at least a crooked self. The others would matter little but for this. It may be you have crooked temptationstemptations to profanity or to certain vices.
3. God will make all the crooked things straight.

(1.) It may be that some are straight now; the making straight is only to make them seem so to us. Our crosses are our best estates.

(2.) God can bend the crooked straight, and what will not bend, He can break. The crooked character has been bent straight; the judgment of God has taken away the crook out of the household, so that the righteous might have peace. If He do not this, He will give power to overleap the difficulty (2Sa. 22:30).

II. Some words to the seeker.

1. Some doctrines are dark to you. God makes all light to faith.
2. Perhaps your darkness rises from deep depression of mind. Faith must precede its dispersion; faith will disperse it.

3. Your crooked natural disposition God can make straight. Note
(1.) That which saves is not what is, but what will be. I will make darkness light; I will make crooked things straight. There is a transformation in store.

(2.) It is not what you can do, but what God can do. I, Jehovah, will do it.

(3.) This work may not be yours at once, but it shall be soon. It does not say, I will make darkness light today; still it does say, I will.

III. Two lessons to believers.

1. If God will thus make all your darkness light and all your crooked things straight, do not forestall your troubles.

2. Always believe in the power of prayer.C. H. Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit (1868), pp. 709720.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

(14) I have long time holden my peace . . .The change of person indicates that Jehovah is the speaker. Long time, literally, for an age, or an eternity. What is actually meant is the period of the exile, during which, till the advent of the deliverer, there had been no interposition on behalf of Israel. To the exiles this had seemed endless in its weariness. Now there were the travail-pangs of a new birth for the nation. (Comp. Mat. 24:8.) Was it strange that there should be the convulsions and catastrophes which are as the thunder-roaring of the voice of Jehovah?

I will destroy and devour.Better, I pant and gasp. The verbs express strong emotion, the cries of the travailing woman rather than destructive acts.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

14. I have long holden my peace The tense of the first sentence is preterite; that of the sentences following is future. Alexander’s rendering clears the passage of the difficulty: “I have long been still, saying, I will hold my peace, I will restrain myself. But now, like the travailing, ( woman,) I will shriek, I will pant and gasp at once.” The difficulty is in the second member; but if the word saying may precede, the difficulty is removed. Seeing sin in idolatrous forms the Lord had patiently forborne avenging it, long hoping amendment. But he will forbear no longer. Intense anthropomorphism is used to express the energy of his pent-up wrath against it. Divine judgment in an expressed form, fierce and awful, is legitimate when sinners become utterly incorrigible. Perhaps no language, no conception, can reach the reality of the wrongness of sin against God.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Isa 42:14-17. I have long time holden my peace These words contain a declaration of the divine counsel; wherein God teacheth, that, by calling the Gentiles to his communion, he should effect a great change in the world; so that its whole oeconomy should, receive a new and different form. The whole discourse is metaphorical. We have in it, first, the divine counsel concerning the future time, declared by way of opposition; wherein the prophet, continuing the metaphor of the 13th verse, introduces God as a hero, who, after having contained himself a long time like a woman with child, at length, overcome by the love of his honour, aroused with great zeal, breaks silence, pants like a woman in labour, and at the same time exhales and resorbs his breath, as people do who are in great eagerness and agitation: whereby the prophet means to express nothing more than the great zeal of God, to vindicate his glory, and deliver his people. The prophet, secondly, explains the work itself, determined by the divine counsel, Isa 42:15-16 which express the destruction and desolation to be brought upon idols, and idolatrous states, and the blessings of the divine illumination by the Gospel: and, thirdly, we have in the 17th verse the consequence of the execution of the divine counsel, which should be the entire conversion of the Gentile world, after having beheld the triumphs of grace. See Vitringa.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

God’s Terribleness and Gentleness

Isa 42:14-16

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. It is better to fall into the hands of God than into the hands of men. Our God is a consuming fire God is love. The combination of great power and great restraint, and, indeed, the combination of opposite qualities and uses generally, is well known in the ordinary arrangements of civilised life and the daily operation of the laws of nature. The measure of greatness is the measure of terribleness. What is constructiveness but the beneficent side of destructiveness? The fire that warms the chamber when properly regulated, will, if abused, reduce the proudest palaces to ashes. The river, which softens and refreshes the landscape, if allowed to escape its banks, may devastate the most fruitful fields. The engine, which is swiftly bearing the laughing child to his longed-for home, will, if mismanaged, occasion the most terrible havoc. The lightning, which may be caught and utilised by genius and skill, can burn the forest, and strike armies blind. We are familiar with such illustrations of united opposites, and our knowledge of them inspires our enterprise, and attempers with prudence the noble audacity of practical science. In the text we are confronted with the highest expression of the same truth the mighty God is the Everlasting Father; the terrible One is gentler than the gentlest friend; he who rides in the chariot of the thunder stoops to lead the blind by a way that they know not, and to gather the lambs in his bosom.

In pointing out the terribleness of God it is not intended to appeal to fear, but to support and encourage the most loving confidence in his government We do not say, Be good, or God will crush you; that is not virtue; that is not liberty it is vice put on its good behaviour it is iniquity with a sword suspended over its head; it is not even negative goodness; it is mischief put frahors de combat . The great truth to be learned from this aspect of the case is, that all the terribleness of God is the good mar’s security. When the good man sees God wasting the mountains and the hills, and drying up the rivers, he does not say, “I must worship him, or he will destroy me;” he says, “The beneficent side of that power is all mine; because of that power I am safe; the very lightning is my guardian, and in the whirlwind I hear a pledge of benediction.” The good man is delivered from the fear of power; power has become to him an assurance of rest; he says, “My Father has infinite resources of judgment, and every one of them is to my trusting heart a signal of unsearchable riches of mercy.”

Look at the doctrine of the text in relation to bad men who pride themselves upon their success and their strength. Daily life has always been a problem to devout wisdom. Virtue has often been crushed out of the front rank. Vice has forced its way to pre-eminence. The praying man has often to kneel upon the cold stones; the profane man has often walked upon velvet. These are the commonplaces of daily study upon the affairs of men. The doctrine of the text is that there is a power beyond man’s and that nothing is held safely which is not held by consent of that power. Think of wealth as a mountain, or of social position as a hill: God says, “I will make waste mountains and hills;” our greatness is nothing to him; our mountain smokes when he touches it, and our rock melts at his presence. All our gain, our honour, our standing should be looked at in the light of this solemn doctrine. We are not at liberty to exclude the destructive power of God from our practical theology. We have not to make a God, to fancy a God, or to propose a modification of a suggested God God is before us, in his might, his glory, his love, and we have to acquaint ourselves with him. God is not to be described in parts; he is to be comprehended in the unity of his character. A child describing the lightning might say, “It was beautiful, so bright, and swifter than any flying bird, and so quiet that I could not hear it as it passed through the air;” this would be true. A tree might say, “It was awful, it tore off branches that had been growing for a hundred years, it rent me in twain down to the very root, and no summer can ever recover me I am left here to die;” this also would be true. So with Almighty God: he is terrible in power, making nothing of all that man counts strong, yet he will not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax. Men are bound to be as common-sense in their theology as they are in the ordinary works of life, and in building character they are to be at least as forethoughtful and sagacious as in building their houses of stone. How do we conduct our arrangements in building a house? Suppose that it were possible for a man never to have seen any season but summer, and suppose such a man called upon to advise in the erection of a building: you can imagine his procedure; everything is to be light, because he never heard a high wind; water-pipes may be exposed, for he never felt the severity of frost; the most flimsy roof will be sufficient, for he knows nothing of the great rains of winter and spring. Tell such a man that the winds will become stormy, that the rivers will be chilled into ice, that his windows will be blinded with snow, and that floods will beat upon his roof, and if he is a wise man he will say, “I must not build for one season, but for all seasons; I must not build for fine days, but for days that will be tempestuous; I must, as far as possible, prepare for the most inclement and trying weather.” That is simple common sense. Why be less sensible in building a character than in building a house? We build our bricks for severity as well as for sunshine, why build our characters with less care? If in summer we think about the frost, why not in prosperity have some thought for adversity? If in July we prepare for December, why not in the flattering hour of exultation think of the judgment that is at once infallible and irresistible? As he would be infinitely foolish who should build his house without thinking of the natural forces that will try its strength, so is he cursed with insanity who builds his character without thinking of the fire with which God will try every man’s work of what sort it is.

Is not the same truth illustrated by every ship upon the great waters? The child who has only sailed his paper boat on the edge of a placid lake, might wonder what was wanted with enormous beams and bars of iron, innumerable bolts and screws, and clasps and bars of metal, in making a ship: ask the sailer, and he will answer; he says we must be prepared for something more than calm days, we must look ahead, the breakers will try us, the winds will put us to the test, we may come upon an unknown rock, we must be prepared for the worst as well as for the best. We call this prudence. We condemn its omission. We applaud its observance. What of men who attempt the stormy and treacherous waters of life without having had any regard to the probable dangers of the voyage? This is not fervent declamation. In thus putting the case we claim the credit which is due to correct analogy and conclusive argument. We prepare for the severe side of Nature why ignore the severe aspect of God? We think of fire in building our houses why forget it in building our character? On one side of our life we are constantly on the outlook for danger why forget it where the destiny of the soul is concerned? When a man builds his house or his ship strongly, we do not say that he is the victim of fear; we never think of calling him a fanatic; we rather say that he is a cautious and even scientific man: so, when I make appeal to the severity of God to his fire, his sword, his destroying tempests and floods I am not preaching the mere terrors of the Lord, as if I would move by alarm, rather than persuade by love; I am simply faithful to facts I am reminding you that God is not less complete than the seasons which he has made, and bidding them, in the summer of his mercies, not to forget the winter of his judgments!

The so-called success of the bad man has yet to stand the strain of divine trial. God will go through our money to see if it has been honestly obtained. He will search our reputation, and our hypocrisy will not be able to conceal the reality of the case from his all-seeing eye. He will examine our title-deeds, and if we have ill-gotten property, he will set the universe against us, until we restore it with penitence or have it wrenched out of our keeping by retributive misfortune. Yea, though our strength be as a mountain, it shall be wasted; though it be as a hill, it shall be blown away, and the world shall see how poorly they build who build only for the light and quietness of summer. Do not say the winter is long in coming; it will come, and that is the one fact which should move our concern and bring us to wisdom. In these days, when the world is in a constant panic, when men are over-driving one another, when commerce has been turned into gambling, and sharp-shooters pass as honest men, it is needful that we all remind ourselves that God will judge the people righteously, and try all men by the test of his own holiness. Remember, we are not stronger than our weakest point, and that true wisdom binds us to watch even the least gate that is insufficient or insecure.

Look at the doctrine of the text as an encouragement to all men who work under the guidance of God. “I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not: I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight.” God thus declares himself gentle to those who truly need him. He promises nothing to the self-sufficient; he promises much to the needy. The text shows the principle upon which divine help is given to men the principle of conscious need and of willingness to be guided. Let a man say, “I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing,” and God will leave him to his proud sufficiency; let him, on the other hand, feel his weakness and insignificance, and God will bless him with all the help which he requires in the most difficult passages of his. life. A true apprehension of this doctrine will give us a new view of daily providences viz., that men who are apparently most destitute may in reality be most richly enjoying the blessings of God. Clearly, we are not to judge human life by outward conditions. We are not to overlook the beneficent law of compensation. Those who apparently have least may in reality have most. Who can tell what visions of himself God grants to men who cannot see his outward works? Blindness may not be merely so much defect, it may be but another condition of happiness. Who can say that it does not bring the soul so much nearer God? Be that as it may, it is plainly taught in the text that God undertakes to lead all men who will yield themselves to his guidance, and that their defects, instead of being a hindrance, are, in reality, the express conditions on which offers of divine help are founded. It is because we are blind that he will lead us. It is because we are weak that he will carry us. It is because we have nothing that he offers to give us all things. God, addressing himself to human weakness, is the complement of God wasting mountains and hills; God, shedding the morning dew on awaking flowers, is the complement of God affrighting the earth with tempests and vexing the sea with storms. There is an unsearchable depth of pathos in the doctrine that God is gentle to human weakness, and that he will make up with his own hands what is wanting in human faculty. Strong men seldom care for the weak, the blind are put on one side, the incapable are dismissed with impatience; but here is God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, taking the blind man’s hand and leading him like a child specially beloved!

Thus it is clear that self-sufficiency on the part of man is an offence to God; not only so, it is a vexation to man himself. All efforts at completeness and independence of strength end in mortification. Towards one another we are to be self-reliant; towards God we are to be humble, dependent, all-trustful. How infinite is our folly in seeking to remove, by our own power, the mountains and hills that bar our way! God says he will remove them for us; why should we turn away his mighty arm? He claims such work as his own; why should we meddle with it as if we could do it better than he? But some of us will meddle: we persist in seeking omnipotence in our own hands, and trying to reach the tone which winds and seas obey. We will do it. The devil urges us, and we yield. He says, “Be your own God,” and we snatch at the suggestion as a prize. He says, “This little mountain you might surely manage to remove;” and then we set to work with pickaxe and shovel, and lo, the mountain grows as we strike it! Still the tempter says, “It stands to reason that you must be making some impression upon it; try again;” and we try again, and again we fail the mountain does not know us, the rock resents our intrusion, and having wasted our strength, the devil laughs at our impotence, and tells us in bitter mockery that we shall do better next time! Yes! Next time next time and then next time and then hell! Gad says to us, when we stand at the foot of great hills and mountains, “I will beat them into dust, I will scatter the dust to the winds; there shall be a level path for your feet, if you will but put your trust in me.” That is a sublime offer. No man who has heard it ought to feel himself at liberty to act as if God had not made a proposition to him. And such propositions ought to endear God to our hearts. Here he is beside us, before us, round about us, to help, to lead, to bless us in every way: not a figure in the distant clouds, not an occasional appearance under circumstances that dazzle and confound us, but always at our right hand, always within reach of our prayer, always putting out his hand when we come to dangerous places. As a mere conception of God, this reaches the point of sublimity. The coarsest mind might dream of God’s infinite majesty, but only the richest quality of heart could have discovered him in the touch of gentleness and the service of condescension. Let us make such use of this revelation of the divine character as will save us from turning our theology into the chief terror of our lives. Their theology is, indeed, to some men a frightful spectre. They would be happier if they were atheists. They fitfully slumber on the slopes of a volcano, and to them heaven itself is but the less of two evils. Behold! Behold! I call you to a God whose very terribleness may be turned into an assurance of security, and whose love is infinite, unchanging, eternal!

Men of business! ye whose barns are full, whose rivers overflow, on whose estates the sun has written “Prosperity,” and into whose garners autumn has forced the richest of her golden sheaves! Know ye that these things are all gifts of God, and that he who gave them can also withdraw them? “I will destroy and devour at once I will dry up all their herbs.” He has right of way through our fields and orchards; our vineyards and oliveyards are his, and he can blow upon them till they wither, and cause their blossom to go up like the dust. “I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay-tree. Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not: yea, I sought him, but he could not be found.” Not a fibre of his root could be discovered. Not so much as a withered leaf drifted into a ditch could be traced. All gone the great branches gone the bark gone the trunk gone the root gone and the very name had perished from the recollection of men! It is poor prosperity that is not held by God’s favour. Gold goes a little way if it be not sanctified by prayer and giving of thanks. Bread cannot satisfy, unless it be broken by God’s hands. Our fields may look well at night, but in the morning they may have been trampled by an invisible destroyer. Do not say that I am urging you by fear; it is because of coming winter that I advise men to build strongly, and it is because of inevitable judgment that I call upon men to walk in the light of righteousness in all the transactions of life.

Children of God! especially those who are called to suffering and weakness and great unrest because of manifold defect, God offers you his hand. Are you blind? He says, I will lead the blind. Are you full of care? He says, Let me carry your burden. Are you in sorrow? He says, Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will answer thee. Is there a very steep road before you at this moment in business, in your family, in your responsibilities? He says, I will make waste mountains and hills, and the rough places shall be made plain. So you are not alone not alone, for the Father is with you. He is with you as a father, not to try your strength, but to increase it; not to make experiments upon you, but to magnify his grace in you by working out for you a wonderful redemption. Rest on God. His arm, not your own, must be your strength. Fear God, and no other fear shall ever trouble you.

Let us pray; let us pray with our whole heart, and the terrible God will show us the fulness of his mercy: Almighty God, clothed with thunder, and carrying with thee the lightning which makes men tremble with great fear, we have heard that thou canst make waste mountains and hills, and shake the foundations of the earth; we have heard also of thy lovingkindness and tender mercy, and our souls have hoped in thy grace. We bless thee that in Christ Jesus, our only and ever sufficient Saviour, even thy terrors are blessings, and the multitude of thy mighty works show how immeasurably profound is thy love. When thou tearest, thou dost bind up again; when thou castest down thy people, it is that thou mayest surprise and gladden them by unlooked-for exaltation. Thou hast thy way in the whirlwind, and the clouds are the dust of thy feet. Thy chariots are twenty thousand, even thousands of thousands, yet thou stoopest to take up the weary lamb, and to revive the heart of thy children. Though thou canst thunder in thy universe until all beings pause in the silence of fear, yet canst thou speak to desponding men in a still small voice, and heal them with the gentlest comfort. We desire to know thee in all the revealed aspects of thy nature, and to walk before thee with the carefulness of reverence and the joy of love. Thou art our refuge and strength; thou art our shield and buckler; thou givest grace and glory; thou comest to us in the snows of winter and in the tender buddings of the spring; thou temperest judgment with mercy. May the meditation in which we have engaged subdue us, yet cheer our hearts as with renewed hope! May thy servants fear thee, O great King; may thy saints rejoice in thee, O gracious Father! We quail before thy power, we are made glad by thy love; may we rejoice with trembling! Specially draw our tenderest affections to the Cross of the dying Saviour. In that Cross we see how wonderful is thy righteousness, and how boundless is thy love. It reveals to us the terribleness of the law, and shows to us the source and sufficiency of the Gospel; we would abide at the Cross, so mournful, yet so full of hope, until we abhor our sin, and become partakers of thy holiness. Blessed One, Life of all life, and Glory of all light, Creator, Father, Saviour, complete in us the hallowed mystery of redemption by the Cross. Amen.

Prayer

Almighty God, we are thine, and not another’s; thou dost own us wholly. Thou hast said in thy book, All souls are mine. Thou hast created us, and not we ourselves; we are the work of thy hands; thine image is upon us; thou wilt not forsake those whom thou hast formed. We have natural claims upon thee, and these thou wilt not reject; thou wilt honour them; thou art honouring them by daily providence, by minutest care, by most patient forbearance, by ineffable gentleness. But thou hast also come to us in our condition as sinners, rebellious, disloyal souls, that have cast off the sceptre of Christ and prayed for another dominion. Thou hast redeemed us with the precious blood of Christ; thou canst not, wilt not, give us up. Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die? is the question of thy love. Thou hast established amongst us the Cross of thy Son; above the superscription of Pilate thou hast written, Herein is love. We would come to the Cross, tell thee of all our sin, ask thee to burn it out of us, not with judgment but with love, and to heal us O mystery of healing by the blood of Jesus Christ thy Son. Thou knowest that we have to pass through the water and through the fire, thou knowest the heat of the one and the violence of the other; but they are all under thy control, loving, mighty, saving Father. So why care we? For what should we care? There is but one Almighty, we need no other. Into thy hands we fall; in thy hands we rest; under thy providence we shall grow and be established, and our purposes in Christ shall be consummated. Dry our tears, many and hot; save us from fear; from dejection, from despair; bless us with the inspiration and confidence of hope, and with the strength of men whose trust is in the living God. Amen.

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

Isa 42:14 I have long time holden my peace; I have been still, [and] refrained myself: [now] will I cry like a travailing woman; I will destroy and devour at once.

Ver. 14. I have long time holden my peace. ] As a travailing woman biteth in her pain as long as she is able. So had God, for causes best known to himself, forborne a long while to appear for his people and to avenge them of their enemies. But now Patientia laesa fit furor: Deique patientia quo diuturnior, est minacior. Now down goeth Dagon and the devil’s whole kingdom before this jealous giant.

Now will I cry like a travailing woman. ] Which when she can bear no longer, sets up her note, and is heard all the house over. This is very comfortable. God is pained, as it were, for his people – in all their afflictions he is afflicted; he longs for their deliverance, which therefore shall not be long ere it come.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Isa 42:14-17

14I have kept silent for a long time,

I have kept still and restrained Myself.

Now like a woman in labor I will groan,

I will both gasp and pant.

15I will lay waste the mountains and hills

And wither all their vegetation;

I will make the rivers into coastlands

And dry up the ponds.

16I will lead the blind by a way they do not know,

In paths they do not know I will guide them.

I will make darkness into light before them

And rugged places into plains.

These are the things I will do,

And I will not leave them undone.

17They will be turned back and be utterly put to shame,

Who trust in idols,

Who say to molten images,

You are our gods.

Isa 42:14 This possibly refers to the exilic period. YHWH endured the exile of His covenant people with deep emotions.

1. I have kept silent for a long time

2. I have kept still and restrained Myself

3. I waited in anguish like a woman in labor

a. a groan (BDB 821, KB 949)

b. a gasp (BDB 983, KB 1375)

c. a pant (BDB 675, KB 730)

Isa 42:15-16 YHWH describes His aid for the returning covenant people.

1. Isa 42:15 is metaphorical of preparing a smooth and level highway for the return (also Isa 42:16 d)

2. Isa 42:16 -c describes His care for the returnees

3. Isa 42:16 -f describes YHWH’s sure commitment to act (two Qal PERFECTS)

Isa 42:17 This continues YHWH’s rejection and condemnation of idolatry (i.e., Isa 1:28-31; Isa 44:9-11; Isa 45:16).

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

a Deaf and Blind Messenger

Isa 42:14-25

There are times in our lives when God seems to hold His peace. Evil is rife, bad men prosper, society lies under the spell of vice. It is only temporary, however. Then God comes forth out of the silence, and shows Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him. He brings the blind by a way that they knew not, and makes the crooked places straight.

These wonderful things are wrought not for the wise and holy alone, but for the blind and the deaf, who nevertheless desire to serve Him. See Isa 42:19. Gods help is not conditioned by our merit, but by our faith. In the eyes of men we may be the least fit to claim divine succor. But our deficiencies and failures constitute our most eloquent claim-God knew what we were, before He ever stooped to identify Himself with us. He is pleased to help us for His righteousness sake. His name and character must be maintained. Therefore He has magnified the law and made it honorable by the matchless obedience and death of His only begotten Son. See Gal 4:4-5.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

long time: Job 32:18, Job 32:20, Psa 50:2, Psa 83:1, Psa 83:2, Ecc 8:11, Ecc 8:12, Jer 15:6, Jer 44:22, Luk 18:7, 2Pe 3:9, 2Pe 3:10, 2Pe 3:15

devour: Heb. swallow, or sup up

Reciprocal: Gen 43:31 – refrained Gen 45:1 – could not Psa 9:19 – Arise Psa 50:3 – keep Psa 68:1 – God arise Psa 78:65 – and like Psa 80:2 – stir up Psa 109:1 – Hold Psa 119:126 – time Isa 33:10 – Now will I rise Isa 64:12 – General Isa 65:6 – I will Oba 1:16 – swallow down Zep 3:8 – rise Zec 8:2 – I was jealous

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Isa 42:14-17. Yahweh has long Restrained Himself: at last He will Crush His Foes and Help His Servants.Long inactive, Yahweh is now filled with desire to intervene. He will ravage and lay waste the lands of His foes: but His people He will bring carefully and tenderly home, thus overwhelming the idolators with shame.

Isa 42:15. islands: read, parched ground.

Isa 42:16. Read, on the way, and omit the next four words.forsake: leave undone.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

42:14 I have long time held my peace; I have been still, [and] restrained myself: [now] will I cry like a {s} travailing woman; I will destroy and devour at once.

(s) I will haste to execute my vengeance, which I have so long deferred as a woman that desires to be delivered, when she is in labour.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

God Himself explained that He had remained quiet a long time, but in the future He would cry out, as a pregnant woman does just before she gives birth. The cry (cf. Isa 42:13) signals a mighty act. God would bring forth a new thing.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)