Isaiah 8:13

13 You shall regard Yahweh of hosts as holy, and he [is] your fear, and he [is] your dread.

Isaiah 8:13 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 8:13

Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself
Christ, Immanuel, God with us, the Lord of the armies above and below, of angels and of men, God over all, the true Jehovah, who is sanctified by his people, when they declare him to be so; as the Targum paraphrases it,

``the Lord of hosts, him shall ye say is holy;''
for they cannot make him so, nor can he receive any holiness from them, nor does he need any; but they celebrate the perfection of his holiness, and ascribe it to him; yea, they sanctify him, by ascribing their holiness to him; by looking to him as their sanctification, and by deriving and expecting every degree and measure of holiness from him, to complete theirs; by exercising faith upon him, and showing a regard to his commands and ordinances: and [let] him [be] your fear, and [let] him [be] your dread;
that is, the object of fear and dread; not of a servile fear and dread, but of a holy reverence and godly fear; such a fear as is the grace of the covenant, which flows from the goodness of God, and has that for its object, and is influenced by it; see ( Hosea 3:5 ) where the same Lord, Messiah, David the king, is meant, as here. See ( 1 Peter 3:15 ) .

Isaiah 8:13 In-Context

11 For Yahweh said this to me {while his hand weighed heavily on me}, and he {warned me not to walk} in the way of this people, saying,
12 "You must not call conspiracy everything that this people calls conspiracy, and you must not {share its fear}, and you must not be in dread.
13 You shall regard Yahweh of hosts as holy, and he [is] your fear, and he [is] your dread.
14 And he will become like a sanctuary and a stumbling-stone, and like a stumbling-rock for the two houses of Israel, like a trap and a snare for the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
15 And many shall stumble among them, and they shall fall and they shall be broken, and they shall be ensnared and they shall be caught."

Footnotes 1

Scripture quotations marked (LEB) are from the Lexham English Bible. Copyright 2012 Logos Bible Software. Lexham is a registered trademark of Logos Bible Software.