Isaiah 48:8

8 You have never heard; you have never known; For a long time your ears have not been open. For I knew that you were very treacherous, and were known as a rebel from birth.

Isaiah 48:8 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 48:8

Yea, thou heardest not; yea, thou knewest not yea, from that
time that thine ear was not opened
This, as Kimchi rightly observes, is said by way of reproof; showing that they were so far from knowing these things before the prophecy of them was given out, that when it was, they did not hearken or listen to them; they did not understand them, nor receive and embrace them, but turned a deaf ear to them; their hearts being hardened, and they given up blindness of mind; which was the case of the Jews, even when the Messiah, the antitype of Cyrus, came, and there was a more clear revelation of Gospel truths, as was foretold, ( Isaiah 6:9 Isaiah 6:10 ) ( John 12:39 John 12:40 ) . To this sense is the Targum,

``yea, thou has not heard the words of the prophets; yea, thou hast not received the doctrine of the law; yea, thou hast not inclined thine ear to the words of the blessings and curses of the covenant I made with thee at Horeb:''

for I knew that thou wouldest deal very treacherously:
with God, and with one another, as they did; and were, as Jeremiah calls them, an assembly of treacherous men; and especially so they were in Christ's time, and to him; one of his own disciples treacherously betrayed him into the hands of the Jews, and they delivered him into the hands of the Gentiles to be crucified and slain; all which he knew before hand, ( John 6:64 ) ( Matthew 20:18 Matthew 20:19 ) . And so the Lord knows all the wickedness and unfaithfulness of men, and of his own people, who are by nature children of wrath, as, others; yet this hindered not the designs of his grace, and the discoveries of his love to them, after expressed: and wast called a transgressor from the womb;
from the time of their civil birth, as a people and state, God was their Father that settled and established them; in this sense they were his children, whom he begot, brought up, and nourished; though they rebelled against him, and as soon almost as born, soon after they came out of Egypt, which were the days of their youth, of their infancy as a church and people; witness their murmurings and unbelief, their idolatry in making a golden calf, and worshipping it: and this is applicable to every particular person, and his natural birth, even to everyone of God's elect; who are all conceived in sin, and shapen in iniquity; go astray from God from the womb; and the imagination of whose heart is evil from their youth, and are continually transgressing the righteous law of God, and therefore justly deserve this name.

Isaiah 48:8 In-Context

6 You have heard it. Observe it all. Will you not acknowledge it? From now on I will announce new things to you, hidden things that you have not known.

7 They have been created now, and not long ago; you have not heard of them before today, so you could not claim, "I already knew them!"

8 You have never heard; you have never known; For a long time your ears have not been open. For I knew that you were very treacherous, and were known as a rebel from birth.

9 I will delay My anger for the honor of My name, and I will restrain Myself for your benefit and [for] My praise, so that you will not be destroyed.

10 Look, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.