Isaiah 48:11 MEANING



Isaiah 48:11
(11) Will I do it . . .--The neuter pronoun includes the whole work of redemption.

For how should my name be polluted?--The italics show that "my name" is not in the Hebrew, but the context requires its insertion as from Isaiah 48:9. or that of "my glory" from the clause that follows. The "pollution" or desecration of the name of Jehovah would follow, it is implied, on the non-completion of His redeeming work.

Verse 11. - How should my Name be polluted? i.e. how should I allow of its pollution or desecration (see the comment on ver. 9)? I will not give my glory unto another (comp. Isaiah 42:8). God would have ceded his glory to some god of the nations, had he under existing circumstances forsaken Israel.

48:9-15 We have nothing ourselves to plead with God, why he should have mercy upon us. It is for his praise, to the honour of his mercy, to spare. His bringing men into trouble was to do them good. It was to refine them, but not as silver; not so thoroughly as men refine silver. If God should take that course, they are all dross, and, as such, might justly be put away. He takes them as refined in part only. Many have been brought home to God as chosen vessels, and a good work of grace begun in them, in the furnace of affliction. It is comfort to God's people, that God will secure his own honour, therefore work deliverance for them. And if God delivers his people, he cannot be at a loss for instruments to be employed. God has formed a plan, in which, for his own sake, and the glory of his grace, he saves all that come to Him.For mine own sake, even for mine own sake, will I do it,.... Defer his anger, not cut off his people and destroy them, but redeem and save them: this, in the literal sense, respects the redemption and deliverance of the Jews by Cyrus from the Babylonish captivity; which the Lord did, not for any deserts of theirs, but for the sake of his own honour and glory; or, as the Targum,

"for my name, and for my word;''

which is repeated here again and again for the confirmation of it, and that it might be more observed. In the mystical sense, it respects redemption and salvation by Christ, of which the former was typical:

for how should my name be polluted? blasphemed and evil spoken of among the nations of the world; who would be ready to say, that either the Lord did not love his people, and was not mercifully disposed towards them; or that he could not save them, and that their hands, or their gods, were mightier than he; see Deuteronomy 32:26.

and I will not give my glory to another; to another people, as the Targum, or to another god; See Gill on Isaiah 42:8.

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