Isaiah 40:21

21 Surely you know. Surely you have heard. Surely from the beginning someone told you. Surely you understand how the earth was created.

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 An idol is formed by a craftsman, and a goldsmith covers it with gold and makes silver chains for it.
20 A poor person cannot buy those expensive statues, so he finds a tree that will not rot. Then he finds a skilled craftsman to make it into an idol that will not fall over.
21 Surely you know. Surely you have heard. Surely from the beginning someone told you. Surely you understand how the earth was created.
22 God sits on his throne above the circle of the earth, and compared to him, people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the skies like a piece of cloth and spreads them out like a tent to sit under.
23 He makes rulers unimportant and the judges of this world worth nothing.
Scripture taken from the New Century Version. Copyright © 1987, 1988, 1991 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.