Isaiah 41:21

Produce your cause, saith the LORD; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(21) Produce your cause.—The scene of Isaiah 41:1 is reproduced. The worshippers of idols, as the prophet sees them in his vision hurrying hither and thither to consult their oracles, are challenged, on the ground not only of the great things God hath done, but of His knowledge of those things. The history of Herodotus supplies some striking illustrations. Crœus and the Cumœans, and the Phocæans, and the Athenians are all sending to Delphi, or consulting their seers, as to this startling apparition of a new conqueror.

Your strong reasons.—Literally, bulwarks, or strongholds. So we speak of impregnable proofs.

Benson Commentary

Isaiah 41:21-24. Produce your cause — He renews his challenge to the idolaters to plead the cause of their idols, and give convincing proof of their divinity: see on Isaiah 41:1. Bring forth your strong reasons — Hebrew, הגישׁו עצמותיכם, which Bishop Lowth renders, “Produce these your mighty powers;” and Jerome, “Accedant idola vestra, quæ putatis esse fortissima,” let those of your idols, whom you think most powerful, approach. “I prefer this,” says the bishop, “to all other interpretations of this place. The false gods are called upon to come forth and appear in person, and to give evident demonstration of their foreknowledge and power, by foretelling future events, and exerting their power in doing good or evil.” Let them — Either the idols, or the idolaters in the name and by the help of their idols; show us what shall happen — All future events, which he divides into two sorts in the following clause, the former and the latter. Let them show the former things — Let the idols, or you their worshippers, prove that they ever uttered any true oracles or prophecies relating to former times, and, that the event hath exactly answered the prediction, and this will give credit to any predictions they shall deliver relating to things yet future. Or, by the former things, may be meant such things as should shortly come to pass, which might be better discerned than those things which were yet at a greater distance. So understood, he proposes the easiest part first. Let us try whether they can foretel those things which are even at the door, and, if so, we will try them further. Let them tell us what things shall happen, and in what order; which first and which last. That we may consider them — Hebrew, ונשׁימה לבנו, and we will set our heart to it. We will allow the argument its due weight, and either fairly answer it, or give up our cause against idols; and know — That we may know; the latter end of them — The consequence of them, as אחריתןmay be rendered, whether the events answer to their predictions. Or declare us things for to come — Namely, after a long time. That we may know that ye are gods — That we may have, if not a certain proof, yet a probable argument of your deity. Yea, do good or do evil — Protect your worshippers, whom I intend to destroy, or destroy my people, whom I intend to save; that we may be dismayed, &c. — That I and my people may be astonished, and forced to acknowledge your godhead. Behold, ye are of nothing — You lately were nothing, without any being at all; and your work of naught — Your operations are like your beings; there is no reality in your beings, nor efficacy in your actions. An abomination is he that chooseth you — He that chooseth you for his gods is most abominable for his folly, as well as his wickedness.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

41:21-29 There needs no more to show the folly of sin, than to bring to notice the reasons given in defence of it. There is nothing in idols worthy of regard. They are less than nothing, and worse than nothing. Let the advocates of other doctrines than that of salvation through Christ, bring their arguments. Can they tell of a cure for human depravity? Jehovah has power which cannot be withstood; this he will make appear. But the certain knowledge of the future must be only with Jehovah, who fulfils his own plans. All prophecies, except those of the Bible, have been uncertain. In the work of redemption the Lord showed himself much more than in the release of the Jews from Babylon. The good tidings the Lord will send in the gospel, is a mystery hid from ages and generations. A Deliverer is raised up for us, of nobler name and greater power than the deliverer of the captive Jews. May we be numbered among his obedient servants and faithful friends.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Produce your cause - This address is made to the same persons who are referred to in Isaiah 41:1 - the worshippers of idols; and the prophet here returns to the subject with reference to a further argument on the comparative power of Yahweh and idols. In the former part of the chapter, God had urged his claims to confidence from the fact that he had raised up Cyrus; that the idols were weak and feeble compared with him; and from the fact that it was his fixed purpose to defend his people, and to meet and refresh them when faint and weary. In the verses which follow Isaiah 41:21, he urges his claims to confidence from the fact that he alone was able to predict future events, and calls on the worshippers of idols to show their claims in the same manner. This is the 'cause' which is now to be tried.

Bring forth your strong reasons - Adduce the arguments which you deem to be of the greatest strength and power (compare the notes at Isaiah 41:1). The object is, to call on them to bring forward the most convincing demonstration on which they relied, of their power and their ability to save. The argument to which God appeals is, that he had foretold future events. He calls on them to show that they had given, or could give, equal demonstration of their divinity. Lowth regards this as a call on the idol-gods to come forth in person and show their strength. But the interpretation which supposes that it refers to their reasons, or arguments, accords better with the parallelism, and with the connection.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

21. A new challenge to the idolaters (see Isa 41:1, 7) to say, can their idols predict future events as Jehovah can (Isa 41:22-25, &c.)?

your strong reasons—the reasons for idol-worship which you think especially strong.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Produce your cause: the prophet having pleaded God’s cause against the idolatrous Gentiles, whom he challenged to a dispute, Isaiah 41:1, he now reneweth the challenge, and gives them liberty and invitation to speak whatsoever they can on the behalf of their idols.

Bring forth your strong reasons, to prove the divinity of your idols.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Produce your cause, saith the Lord,.... The Lord having comforted his people under their afflictions and persecutions from their enemies in the first times of Christianity, returns to the controversy between him and the idolatrous Heathens, and challenges them to bring their cause into open court, and let it be publicly tried, that it may be seen on what side truth lies:

bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob; or King of saints, the true Israel of God, who acknowledge the Lord as their King and their God, and whom he rules over, protects and defends; and this title is assumed for the comfort of them, that though he is King over all the nations of the world, yet in an eminent and peculiar sense their King; and he does not style himself the God of Jacob, though he was, because this was the thing in controversy, and the cause to be decided, whether he was the true God, or the gods of the Gentiles; and therefore their votaries are challenged to bring forth the strongest reasons and arguments they could muster together, in proof of the divinity of their idols; their "bony" arguments, as the word (x) signifies; for what bones are to the body, that strong arguments are to a cause, the support and stability of it.

(x) os.

Geneva Study Bible

{r} Produce your cause, saith the LORD; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob.

(r) He bids the idolaters to prove their religion and to bring forth their idols, that they may be tried whether they know all things, and can do all things, which if they cannot do, he concludes that they are not gods, but vile idols.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

21. your strong reasons] Lit. “your strengths,” a military metaphor transferred to controversy; cf. Job 13:12. The related word ‘iṣma is used in the same way in Arabic.

the King of Jacob] (Cf. ch. Isaiah 43:15, Isaiah 44:6), referring back, perhaps, to Isaiah 41:8 f.,—the King whose “servant” Jacob is.

21–24. The argument of Isaiah 41:1-4 is resumed, but now the idols (Isaiah 41:23), not their worshippers, are addressed. Foreknowledge is the test of divinity. Can the idols produce any instance whatever of their power to predict, or indeed any proof of life and activity at all?

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 21-29. - JEHOVAH'S CONTROVERSY WITH THE NATIONS AND THEIR IDOL-GODS. The argument is now taken up from vers. 1-4. Jehovah and his worshippers are on the one side; the idol-gods and their votaries on the other. The direct challenge, however, is given by Jehovah himself to the idols:

1. What predictions of their own can they bring forward as proofs of supernatural knowledge?

2. What indications can they give of power either to do good or to do evil (vers. 22, 23)? If they can do neither, they are vanity (ver. 24). Jehovah has both reared up Cyrus he and he only - and has announced the good tidings to his people (vers. 25-27). No such announcement has been made by the idol-gods; they are therefore mere "wind and confusion" (vers. 28, 29). Verse 21. - Produce your cause. The nations had been told to "draw near" - to "keep silence" while God spoke - and "then to speak" (ver. 1). Now the time for them to speak is come, and they are challenged to "produce" and plead "their cause." Your strong reasons; literally, your bulwarks, or defences. Saith the King of Jacob. The king and tutelary god of the nation, Israel, really holding the position that the idol-gods were regarded as holding towards the peoples that worshipped them. The "kingly" character of the idol-gods was indicated in such names as Moloch (equivalent to "king"), Melkarth (equivalent to "king of the city"), Adrammelech (equivalent to "glorious king"), Baal (equivalent to "lord"), Adonis (equivalent to "my lord"), etc. Isaiah 41:21

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

There follows now the second stage in the suit. "Bring hither your cause, saith Jehovah; bring forward your proofs, saith the king of Jacob. Let them bring forward, and make known to us what will happen: make known the beginning, what it is, and we will fix our heart upon it, and take knowledge of its issue; or let us hear what is to come. Make known what is coming later, and we will acknowledge that ye are gods: yea, do good, and do evil, and we will measure ourselves, and see together." In the first stage Jehovah appealed, in support of His deity, to the fact that it was He who had called the oppressor of the nations upon the arena of history. In this second stage He appeals to the fact that He only knows or can predict the future. There the challenge was addressed to the worshippers of idols, here to the idols themselves; but in both cases both of these are ranged on the one side, and Jehovah with His people upon the other. It is with purpose that Jehovah is called the "King of Jacob,"as being the tutelar God of Israel, in contrast to the tutelar deities of the heathen. The challenge to the latter to establish their deity is first of all addressed to them directly in Isaiah 41:21, and then indirectly in Isaiah 41:22, where Jehovah connects Himself with His people as the opposing party; but in Isaiah 41:22 He returns again to a direct address. עצּמות are evidences (lit. robara, cf., ὀχυρώματα, 2 Corinthians 10:4, from עצם, to be strong or stringent; mishn. נתעצּם, to contend with one another pro et contra); here it signifies proofs that they can foresee the future. Jehovah for His part has displayed this knowledge, inasmuch as, at the very time when He threatened destruction to the heathen at the hands of Cyrus, He consoled His people with the announcement of their deliverance (Isaiah 41:8-20). It is therefore the turn of the idol deities now: "Let them bring forward and announce to us the things that will come to pass." the general idea of what is in the future stands at the head. Then within this the choice is given them of proving their foreknowledge of what is afterwards to happen, by announcing either ראשׁנות, or even בּאות. These two ideas, therefore, are generic terms within the range of the things that are to happen. Consequently הרשׁנות cannot mean "earlier predictions," prius praedicta, as Hitzig, Knobel, and others suppose. This explanation is precluded in the present instance by the logic of the context. Both ideas lie upon the one line of the future; the one being more immediate, the other more remote, or as the expression alternating with הבאות implies לאחור האתיּות, ventura in posterum ("in later times," compare Isaiah 42:23, "at a later period;" from the participle אתה, radical form אתי, vid., Ges. 75, Anm. 5, probably to distinguish it from אתות). This is the explanation adopted by Stier and Hahn, the latter of whom has correctly expounded the word, as denoting "the events about to happen first in the immediate future, which it is not so difficult to prognosticate from signs that are discernible in the present." The choice is given them, either to foretell "things at the beginning" (haggı̄dū in our editions is erroneously pointed with kadma instead of geresh), i.e., that which will take place first or next, "what they be" (quae et qualia sint), so that now, when the achărı̄th, "the latter end" (i.e., the issue of that which is held out to view), as prognosticated from the standpoint of the present, really occurs, the prophetic utterance concerning it may be verified; or "things to come," i.e., things further off, in later times (in the remote future), the prediction of which is incomparably more difficult, because without any point of contact in the present. They are to choose which they like (או from אוה, like vel from velle): "ye do good, and do evil," i.e., (according to the proverbial use of the phrase; cf., Zephaniah 1:12 and Jeremiah 10:5) only express yourselves in some way; come forward, and do either the one or the other. The meaning is, not that they are to stir themselves and predict either good or evil, but they are to show some sign of life, no matter what. "And we will measure ourselves (i.e., look one another in the face, testing and measuring), and see together," viz., what the result of the contest will be. השׁתּעה like התראה in 2 Kings 14:8, 2 Kings 14:11, with a cohortative âh, which is rarely met with in connection with verbs ל ה, and the tone upon the penultimate, the âh being attached without tone to the voluntative נשׁתּע in 2 Kings 14:5 (Ewald, 228, c). For the chethib ונראה, the Keri has the voluntative ונרא.