And I will wait upon the Lord
Or "for the Lord" F24; for the coming of Christ, the
Immanuel, who would be a sanctuary to some, and a stone of
stumbling to others, and whose doctrine in the meanwhile would be
bound up and sealed; faith in, and expectation of the Messiah's
coming, are often signified by waiting for him, ( Isaiah 25:9 ) (
Habakkuk
2:3 ) : that hideth his face from the house of
Jacob;
to whom the promise of him was made, from whom he should descend,
to whom he should be sent, and whom he would redeem. This is not
to be understood of his deserting of his people, and withdrawing
his gracious presence from them, to show his displeasure at them,
and resentment of their conduct, which is sometimes the sense of
this phrase; but as descriptive of Christ before his assumption
of human nature, when he was "Deus absconditus", the hidden God,
as some render the words in ( Isaiah 45:15
) until he was manifest in the flesh; and which is therefore
called his "appearing", ( 2 Timothy
1:10 ) : and I will look for him;
the prophet here speaks in his own person, and in the person of
the church who in that, and in succeeding ages, as well as
before, were looking by faith for the coming of Christ, and
redemption by him, ( Luke 2:38 ) though some
understand this of Christ, expressing his satisfaction in the few
disciples he had among the Jews, and determining to wait for the
accomplishment of divine promises hereafter, when he should have
a larger number; the Lord for the present hiding his face from
the Jewish nation, and giving them to a spirit of judicial
blindness; which sense well agrees with what goes before, and
follows after.