Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Isaiah 48:13

Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand hath spanned the heavens: [when] I call unto them, they stand up together.

13. Cf. ch. Isa 40:12; Isa 40:22; Isa 40:26; Psa 102:25. For hath spanned render hath spread out (as R.V.). The verb is Aramaic, and does not occur elsewhere in the O.T.

when I call they stand up] Psa 33:9.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Mine hand also hath laid … – I am the Creator of all things, and I have all power, and am abundantly able to deliver you from all your foes.

And my right hand hath spanned the heavens – Margin, The palm of my right hand hath spread out. The sense is, that he by his right hand had spanned, or measured the heavens. The phrase is designed to show his greatness and his power (see the notes at Isa 40:12).

When I call unto them – (See the note at Isa 40:26). The sense here is, that he who had power thus to command the hosts of heaven, and to secure their perfect obedience by his word, had power also to defend his people, and to deliver them from their foes, and conduct them in safety to their own land.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Isa 48:13

Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth

The Creator

I.

THE FOUNDATION OF THE EARTH.

II. THE OVER-ARCHING HEAVENS.

III. THE DIVINE PURPOSE IN THESE GREAT WORKS.

1. The heavens have been Gods grand lesson-books for the instruction and elevation of His children (Psa 19:1-14.).

2. The earth has been the scene of revelations of His character which we cannot believe to be surpassed by any vouchsafed to any other portion of His universe; His judgments on sin; His manifestations of mercy; His tabernacling amongst men in the person of His Son; the death on the Cross for the redemption of lost humanity; the nobleness, sincerity, patience, unselfishness, forgiveness of God manifested in the spiritual education of His children.

3. The long process of sin and redemption shall at length have a glorious consummation. (W. Seward.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Hath spanned; or, doth span, i. e. mete out the heavens with a span, as the phrase is, Isa 40:12, although that be expressed there in other Hebrew words. Or, hath spread them out with its palm, or like a palm, when the hand is stretched out.

When I call unto them, they stand up together; either they stood up and arose out of nothing, when I commanded them to do so; or they are still continually in readiness to execute my commands.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

13. spannedmeasured out (Isa40:12).

when I call . . . stand uptogether (Isa 40:26;Jer 33:25). But it is not theircreation so much which is meant, as that, like ministers ofGod, the heavens and the earth are prepared at His command to executeHis decrees (Ps 119:91)[ROSENMULLER].

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

Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth,…. Which is ascribed to the Wisdom, Word, and Son of God, Pr 3:19. This Aben Ezra and Kimchi interpret of the left hand k, seeing the work of the heavens is ascribed to the right hand in the following clause; the earth being less honourable than the heavens:

and my right hand hath spanned the heavens; stretched them out as a curtain or canopy over the earth, and measured them out with a span, as easily as a man measures anything with his hand; see Isa 40:12,

when I call unto them, they stand up together; or, “I called them, and they stood up together”, as the Targum; and so may refer to the first creation of them, when at the word of God, and by his almighty fiat, they rose into being at once, Ps 33:9. Kimchi observes, that the houses of Hillell and Shaminai were divided about this matter, which were created first, the heavens or the earth; at which R. Simeon ben Jochai wondered, since, according to the text, they were both created together l; though this may be understood of the consistence and permanency of the heavens and the earth, being upheld by the Lord, and by the word of his power, and of the ready obedience of the heavenly bodies to do his will, who, like servants, rise up at once at the word of his command; see

Isa 40:26.

k Vid. T. Bab. Menachot, fol. 36. 2. l Vid. T. Bab. Chagigah, fol. 12. 1.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

13. Surely my hand hath founded the earth. Here the Prophet explains more clearly what he meant in the preceding verse. After having spoken of God’s constant and unvarying will toward us, he likewise praises God’s power as manifested by the works which we daily behold. In these works the Lord may be said to present himself to our view; and, coming forth from his sanctuary, he approaches to us by means of them.

And my right hand hath measured, or, hath upheld the heavens. Whether we translate טפחה (tippechah,) “Hath measured,” or, “Hath upheld,” the meaning will be the same; and we need not give ourselves much trouble about the interpretation of the word. By the word “measure” is denoted God’s amazing wisdom in having adjusted on all sides, with such exact proportion, the vast extent of the heavens, so that it is neither nearer to the earth nor farther from it than is advantageous for preserving order, and that in this prodigious expanse there is nothing jarring or unseemly. If we prefer the word “uphold,” this also is an extraordinary commendation of the wisdom and power of God, in “upholding” the huge mass of the heavens in continual motion, so that it neither totters nor leans more to one side than to another.

When I call them, they stand up, or, shall stand up together. This latter clause, in which he says that all things are ready at, his command, is attended by some greater difficulty; for it may refer either to the first creation or to the continual government of the world. If we refer it to the first creation, the future יעמדו (yagnamdu,) they shall stand, will be put for a preterite. “As soon as the Lord commanded them to appear, they instantly obeyed;” as the Psalmist says, “He spake, and they were done.” (Psa 33:9.) But if we adopt this meaning, the word equally, which he adds, may appear not to agree well with the history of the creation as related by Moses; for heaven and earth were not created and beautified at one moment, but at first everything was shapeless and confused, and afterwards the Lord reduced them to order. (Gen 1:2.) The answer is easy; for the Prophet means nothing more than that the Lord, by the mere expression of his will, created all things, and gave to heaven and earth their form, so that they immediately obeyed his command.

Yet I willingly extend it to the continual government of the world; as if he had said, “Heaven and earth yield to the authority of the Lord and obey his voice, and those bodies which are at the greatest distance from each other move of their own accord with astonishing harmony, as if they were carried about by the same motion of a wheel. Though heaven is separated from the earth by a wide space, yet the voice of the Lord is everywhere heard, he needs no messengers to convey his will, but by the slightest expression he executes everything at the very moment.” Is there any prince who has his servants everywhere rendering to him instant obedience? Certainly not. Thus, the power of God is infinite, is diffused far and wide, and extends to every part of the world, as Scripture declares, (Psa 47:2,) and as we learn by the instructions of faith.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

THE CREATOR

Isa. 48:13. Mine hand also hath laid the foundation, &c.

It seems to be an axiom of modern philosophy that all human knowledge has been progressive, from the roughest fanciful guesses to the safely applied science of our days. Assuming this, we can only account for the recognition of the Oneness of the Creator and the Unity of Creation, not only in the age of Isaiah, but in that of Moses and in that of the Patriarchs, by attributing it to Gods own revelation of Himself to man. This verse brings to mind the sublimely simple and authoritative declaration with which that revelation opens, and it claims our attention in the same calm way to the terrestrial and celestial manifestations of the Divine handiwork.
I. THE FOUNDATION OF THE EARTH.

The solid earth has been regarded in all ages as the type of all that is sure and firm set. But how does its enormous axis remain unbent? Why does not its crust fall in upon the attracting centre, or why do not the resisting forces shatter it? Because matter and forces have been balanced and adapted by Infinite Wisdom and Power (see Isa. 40:12; Job. 38:4-7). But it is not merely a dead weight and bulk. There is incessant physical and chemical action from the outermost aerial limit to the inmost metallic core. Change, decay, renewal, progress, are incessantly busy upon it. Individuals, races, and types all yield place to more advanced successors. The writer of the Book of Job saw the mountains falling and coming to naught, and the rivers wearing the stones. Close research reveals even land and sea changing positions. The mountains depart and the hills are removed. Earthquake, volcano, ice, storm, flood, all contribute to the constant ruin

The hills are shadows, and they flow
From form to form, and nothing stands:
They melt like mist, the solid lands,
Like clouds they shape themselves and go.

Yet the earth, the platform of all these changes, continues stedfast and intact: through all seeming change there is real establishment. Day follows night; spring follows winter. Mountain ridges always lift up their crests on the continents; rivers flow down to the seas; varied life peoples the plains, the forests, the air, the waters. New dynasties, civilisations, faiths replace the old. And there is continuous progress; from chaos and old night to light and order; thence to beauty and life; thence on to consciousness, sensation, will, thought, soul, worship.

It requires a stronger foundation to keep principles firm, while details change, than if all change were impossible. Strongest, when all changes are dominated into orderly measured advancement, With ebb and flow conditioning their march. The conditions are met by the declaration that Gods hand hath laid the foundation of the earth, of life, of human society (Psa. 119:90-91).

II. THE OVER-ARCHING HEAVENS.
My right hand hath spanned the heavens. The mind is utterly lost in the attempt to realise a personal Being as ordering and dominating only the earths changes throughout all time. What, then, of One who not only sitteth upon the circle of the earth, of which the inhabitants are as grasshoppers; but who stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them abroad as a tent to dwell in; who extends them from system to system throughout the space depths, and rules them from eternity to eternity? Thought dies in trying to realise only unoccupied immensity, much more in grappling with the interaction of interminable forces on the atoms of numberless worlds ranging in streams and galaxies throughout it, or scattered in solitary grandeur. End is there none, exclaim the angels in the poem of Richter, whereof we ever heard, neither is there beginning. Philosophy on such grounds declares a personal God unthinkable. But this is only a testimony to the weakness and limitation of thought, and disqualifies it at once as the sole judge of Divine truth and Divine possibility.
The demonstrated unity of material and action throughout space and time establish the existence of one everlasting directive Mind. Otherwise Night and Nothingness have evolved all the living wonder within us and around us, which is more unthinkable yet, than that one guiding Being, who

Lives through all life, extends through all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent.

Telescopy reveals this infinity of worlds as to number. God here declares that His right hand grasps them all. The universality of gravitation and the teachings of the spectroscope emphasise the unity of Matter, Force, and Law. The microscope reveals that bountiful Wisdom which extends to creatures beneath our visual ken. Logical and mathematical deductions from observed physical and chemical phenomena are taken to prove that the infinitesimal atoms are the originators of all forces, and that all things thus appear to create themselves. Either, then, every atom is a deity, and these free and powerful agents must at some distant epoch have conferred and agreed upon their future action under all possible conditions, with a view to the successive ends to be produced, and each must ever since have kept infallibly faithful thereto, or there is One God, wise enough and powerful enough to call unto them, and to cause them to stand up together. This is the view which has stood the test of the ages. To us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things (1Co. 8:6; H. E. I. 353359, 14911494).

There is no part of nature, not even the whirling nebula, the flying comet, or the solitary wandering meteorite, in which law and force are not. Therefore no point of space is without God. And nothing has leaked out from the hollow of His hand. The infinitely great and the infinitely little have not. In spite of all the apparent contradictions of life and of history, man has not. The believer realises that he has not, and will not. In the midst of darkness and perplexity we may well remember that our restless, pain-fraught circumstances never shall. We may remind the sinner that he has not and cannot. Even hell is naked before God, and destruction hath no covering. This truth may be ignored for a while, but rocks and mountains shall be powerless to hide it one day. Gods grasp will soon tighten itself irresistibly. Shall it prove the embrace of the all-loving Father, or of the consuming unquenchable fire?
III. THE DIVINE PURPOSE IN THESE GREAT WORKS.
God has founded the earth and His right hand spans the heavens. He has not done His marvellous work without well-determined purpose. But who hath known the mind of the Lord? The soul can gather hints. Upon the laying of earths corner-stone, the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. Why? Could it be at the forecast of all the sin, the misery, and death of which its surface was to become the theatre, and upon which the heavens continue to look down? Has any human heart ever experienced that high degree of happiness and satisfaction here, which could have inspired by anticipation their rapturous strains? Or can we believe that they arose in response to any such cheerless vision as that final future to which science looks as the most hopeful prospect she dares to cherish from the long interaction of her all-potent all-promising atoms? Sir William Thompson has expressed it for us:That the sun, with all his planets fused into his mass, shall roll a black ball through infinite space. That is, that life having worn itself out in the weary struggle from form to form, shall at last fruitlessly inherit only the blackness of darkness for ever. Their visions were brighter than these, or no joyous shouts would have applauded the work of creation. But whatever were their visions, these are facts:

1. The heavens have been Gods grand lesson-books for the instruction and elevation of His children (Psalms 8, 19)
2. The earth has been the scene of revelations of His character, which we cannot believe to be surpassed by any vouchsafed to any other portion of His universe: His judgments on sin; His manifestations of mercy; His tabernacling amongst men in the person of His Son; the death on the cross for the redemption of lost humanity; the nobleness, sincerity, patience, unselfishness, and forgiveness of God manifested in the spiritual education of His children.
3. The long process of sin and redemption shall at length have a glorious consummation. The righteous shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. God works in nature by stern and relentless agents; and sin, pain, and death will be found one day to have borne necessary parts in elaborating the new creation, which shall know them again no more for ever. Whether the same grand laws working in the same matter shall continue to evolve ever-new phases of order, life, and beauty out of the infinite resource of the divine mind, or whether matter and laws themselves along with us shall be gloriously changed, we know not. Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.William Seward.

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

Isa 48:13. When I call, &c. Nothing can give us a more sublime idea of God than this passage. The idea is taken from servants, who, at the voice of their masters, instantly rise up, and stand ready to execute their commands. The whole creation, at the call of God, arises with prompt obedience, and is ready to execute his Sovereign will.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Isa 48:13 Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand hath spanned the heavens: [when] I call unto them, they stand up together.

Ver. 13. My hand hath also laid the foundation of the earth. ] My left hand, say the Rabbis, as “my right hand spanned the heavens”; that is, meted them out as a workman doth his work. a God did but “call unto them” both, “and they stood up together.” Vain therefore and needless was the disputation of the Samerites and the Hillelites among the Jews, whether was first created the heaven or the earth?

a Oecolamp., in loc.

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