Commentaries:
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown
ENCOURAGEMENT TO THE FAITHFUL REMNANT OF ISRAEL TO TRUST IN GOD FOR DELIVERANCE, BOTH FROM THEIR LONG BABYLONIAN EXILE, AND FROM THEIR PRESENT DISPERSION. (Isa. 51:1-23)
me—the God of your fathers.
ye . . . follow after righteousness—the godly portion of the nation; Isaiah 51:7 shows this (Proverbs 15:9; I Timothy 6:11). "Ye follow righteousness," seek it therefore from Me, who "bring it near," and that a righteousness "not about to be abolished" (Isaiah 51:6-7); look to Abraham, your father (Isaiah 51:2), as a sample of how righteousness before Me is to be obtained; I, the same God who blessed him, will bless you at last (Isaiah 51:3); therefore trust in Me, and fear not man's opposition (Isaiah 51:7-8, Isaiah 51:12-13). The mistake of the Jews, heretofore, has been, not in that they "followed after righteousness," but in that they followed it "by the works of the law," instead of "by faith," as Abraham did (Romans 9:31-32; Romans 10:3-4; Romans 4:2-5).
hole of . . . pit—The idea is not, as it is often quoted, the inculcation of humility, by reminding men of the fallen state from which they have been taken, but that as Abraham, the quarry, as it were (compare Isaiah 48:1), whence their nation was hewn, had been called out of a strange land to the inheritance of Canaan, and blessed by God, the same God is able to deliver and restore them also (compare Matthew 3:9).
Other Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown entries containing Isaiah 51:1:
Song of Solomon 1:9
Isaiah 51:5
Isaiah 51:7
Ezekiel 16:3
Matthew 3:9
Matthew 5:6
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