Ésaïe 40:21

21 Ne le savez-vous pas? ne l'avez-vous pas appris? Ne vous l'a-t-on pas fait connaître dès le commencement? N'avez-vous jamais réfléchi à la fondation de la terre?

Ésaïe 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.

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FOOTNOTES:

F25 (Urah twdowm Mtwnybh alh) "nonne intelligetis fundamenta terrae?" Pagninus, Montanus; "annon intellexistis?" Vatablus.

Ésaïe 40:21 In-Context

19 C'est un ouvrier qui fond l'idole, Et c'est un orfèvre qui la couvre d'or, Et y soude des chaînettes d'argent.

20 Celui que la pauvreté oblige à donner peu Choisit un bois qui résiste à la vermoulure; Il se procure un ouvrier capable, Pour faire une idole qui ne branle pas.

21 Ne le savez-vous pas? ne l'avez-vous pas appris? Ne vous l'a-t-on pas fait connaître dès le commencement? N'avez-vous jamais réfléchi à la fondation de la terre?

22 C'est lui qui est assis au-dessus du cercle de la terre, Et ceux qui l'habitent sont comme des sauterelles; Il étend les cieux comme une étoffe légère, Il les déploie comme une tente, pour en faire sa demeure.

23 C'est lui qui réduit les princes au néant, Et qui fait des juges de la terre une vanité;