For thus saith the Lord God
The Lord confirms what he had before said of redeeming his people
without money, who had been sold for nothing, by past instances
of his deliverance of them: my people went down aforetime
into Egypt to sojourn there;
Jacob and his family went down there of their own accord, where
they were supplied with food in a time of famine, and settled in
a very fruitful part of it; but when they were oppressed, and
cried to the Lord, he appeared for them, and delivered them:
and the Assyrian oppressed them without cause;
which some understand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who they say was
an Assyrian, or so called, because of his power and cruelty; or
it being usual to call any enemy of the Jews an Assyrian: or
rather the words may be rendered, "but the Assyrian" Pharaoh had
some pretence for what he did; the Israelites came into his
country, he did not carry them captive; they received many
benefits and favours there, and were settled in a part of his
dominions, so that he might claim them as his subjects, and
refuse to dismiss them; but the Assyrians had nothing to do with
them; could not make any pretence why they should invade them,
and oppress them; and therefore if the Lord had delivered them
from the one, he would also deliver them from the other. This may
be understood of the several invasions and captivities by Pul,
Tiglathpileser, Shalmaneser, Sennacherib, and even Nebuchadnezzar
king of Babylon; Babylon having been the metropolis of Assyria,
and a branch of the Assyrian empire, though now translated to the
Chaldeans: or the sense is, and the Assyrians also oppressed
Israel, as well as the Egyptians, without any just reason, and I
delivered them out of their hands; and so I will redeem my church
and people out of antichristian bondage and slavery.
Isaiah 52:4
