Isaiah 44:6

A new pledge of redemption is given, and a fresh exhortation to trust in Jehovah; the wretchedness of the idols and their worshippers being pointed out, in contrast with Jehovah, the only speaking and acting God. Isa 44:6 "Thus saith Jehovah the King of Israel, and its Redeemer, Jehovah of hosts; I am first, and I last; and beside me there is no God." The fact that His deity, which rules over not only the natural world, but history as well, is thus without equal and above all time, is now proved by Him from the fact that He alone manifests Himself as God, and that by the utterance of prophecy. Isa 44:7 "And who preaches as I do? Let him make it known, and show it to me; since I founded the people of ancient time! And future things, and what is approaching, let them only make known." Jehovah shows Himself as the God of prophecy since the time that He founded עם־עולם (יקרא refers to the continued preaching of prophecy). ‛Am‛ōlâm is the epithet applied in Eze 26:20 to the people of the dead, who are sleeping the long sleep of the grave; and here it does not refer to Israel, which could neither be called an "eternal" nation, nor a people of the olden time, and which would have been more directly named; but according to Isa 40:7 and Isa 42:5, where ‛am signifies the human race, and Job 22:15., where ‛ōlâm is the time of the old world before the flood, it signifies humanity as existing from the very earliest times. The prophecies of Jehovah reach back even to the history of paradise. The parenthetical clause, "Let him speak it out, and tell it me," is like the apodosis of a hypothetical protasis: "if any one thinks that he can stand by my side." The challenge points to earlier prophecies; with ואתיּות it takes a turn to what is future, אתיות itself denoting what is absolu…

God, by the prophet, goes on in this chapter, as before, I. To encourage his people with the assurance of great blessings he had in store for them at their return out of captivity, and those typical of much greater which the gospel church, his spiritual Israel, should partake of in the days of the Messiah; and hereby he proves himself to be God alone against all pretenders (Isa 44:1-8). II. To expose the sottishness and amazing folly of idol-makers and idol-worshippers (Isa 44:9-20). III. To ratify and confirm the assurances he had given to his people of those great blessings, and to raise their joyful and believing expectations of them (Isa 44:21-28).

44:6-20 This passage uses the form of a trial speech to press God’s argument that disgrace comes to all who trust in idols and false gods.