Isaiah 40:21

21 Have ye not known? have yet not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth?

Isaiah 40:21 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 40:21

Have ye not known?
] This is the speech of the prophet, directed to the idolaters, appealing to their own natural knowledge, who, from the light of nature, might know that idols were nothing, had no divinity in them: that it is God that made the earth and governs the world, and who only ought to be worshipped: have ye not heard?
by tradition from the ancients, from your forefathers, who received it from theirs, and have delivered it to you: hath it not been told you from the beginning?
from the beginning of your states and kingdoms, and even from the beginning of the world, by the wisest and best of men that have been in it, that those things are true before related, and what follow: have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth?
the being of God, the invisible things of him, his eternal power and Godhead, from the things that are made, even from his founding of the earth; as well as such knowledge and understanding has been as early as that, and might be continued from it: or, have ye not understood the foundations of the earth
F25? what the earth is founded upon, and who laid the foundations of it; no other than that divine Being described in the next words.


FOOTNOTES:

F25 (Urah twdowm Mtwnybh alh) "nonne intelligetis fundamenta terrae?" Pagninus, Montanus; "annon intellexistis?" Vatablus.

Isaiah 40:21 In-Context

19 The image, a workman hath cast [it], and the goldsmith overlayeth it with gold, and casteth [for it] silver chains.
20 He that is too impoverished for [such] an oblation chooseth a tree that will not rot; he seeketh unto him a skilful workman to set up a graven image, that shall not be moved.
21 Have ye not known? have yet not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth?
22 [It is] he that sitteth above the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in;
23 that bringeth princes to nothing; that maketh the judges of the earth as vanity.
The American Standard Version is in the public domain.