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Selected Verse: Isaiah 54:9 - King James

Verse	Translation	Text
Isa 54:9	King James	For this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee.

Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse

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A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882]
I am about to do the same in this instance as in Noah's flood. As I swore then that it should not return (Gen 8:21; Gen 9:11), and I kept that promise, so I swear now to My people, and will perform My promise, that there shall be no return of the deluge of My wrath upon them. LOWTH, on insufficient authority, reads (the same will I do now as), "in the days of Noah."

A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882]

I am about to do the same in this instance as in Noah's flood. As I swore then that it should not return (Gen 8:21; Gen 9:11), and I kept that promise, so I swear now to My people, and will perform My promise, that there shall be no return of the deluge of My wrath upon them. LOWTH, on insufficient authority, reads (the same will I do now as), "in the days of Noah."

Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834]
For this is as the waters of Noah unto me - As it was in the time of the flood of waters, so shall it be now. 'I then solemnly promised that the waters should not again drown the earth, and I have kept that promise. I now promise with equal solemnity that I will bestow perpetual favor on my true people, and will shed upon them eternal and unchanging blessings.' 'The waters of Noah,' here mean evidently the flood that came upon the world in his time, and from which he and his family were saved. Lowth, on the authority of one manuscript and of the Vulgate, Syriac, Symmachus, and Theodotion, reads this, 'In the days of Noah? But the authority is not sufficient to change the Hebrew text, and the sense is as clear as if it were changed. As I have sworn - Gen 8:21-22. God appeals to this not only because the oath and promise had been made, but because it had been kept. That I would not be wroth - The idea seems here to be that no calamities should spread over the whole church, and sweep it away, as the waters swept over the world in the time of Noah, or as desolation swept over Jerusalem and the whole land of Canaan in the time of the exile at Babylon. There would be indeed persecutions and calamities, but the church would be safe amidst all these trials. The period would never arrive when God would forsake the church, and when he would leave it to perish. One has only to recollect how God has guarded the church, even during the most dangerous periods, to see how remarkably this has been fulfilled. His covenant has been as sure as that which was made with Noah, and it will be as secure and firm to the end of time.

Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834]

For this is as the waters of Noah unto me - As it was in the time of the flood of waters, so shall it be now. 'I then solemnly promised that the waters should not again drown the earth, and I have kept that promise. I now promise with equal solemnity that I will bestow perpetual favor on my true people, and will shed upon them eternal and unchanging blessings.' 'The waters of Noah,' here mean evidently the flood that came upon the world in his time, and from which he and his family were saved. Lowth, on the authority of one manuscript and of the Vulgate, Syriac, Symmachus, and Theodotion, reads this, 'In the days of Noah? But the authority is not sufficient to change the Hebrew text, and the sense is as clear as if it were changed.

As I have sworn - Gen 8:21-22. God appeals to this not only because the oath and promise had been made, but because it had been kept.

That I would not be wroth - The idea seems here to be that no calamities should spread over the whole church, and sweep it away, as the waters swept over the world in the time of Noah, or as desolation swept over Jerusalem and the whole land of Canaan in the time of the exile at Babylon. There would be indeed persecutions and calamities, but the church would be safe amidst all these trials. The period would never arrive when God would forsake the church, and when he would leave it to perish. One has only to recollect how God has guarded the church, even during the most dangerous periods, to see how remarkably this has been fulfilled. His covenant has been as sure as that which was made with Noah, and it will be as secure and firm to the end of time.

Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78]
The ground of this "everlasting kindness" is given in Isa 54:9 : "For it is now as at the waters of Noah, when I swore that the waters of Noah should not overflow the earth any more; so have I sworn not to be wroth with thee, and not to threaten thee." The commencement of this v. has been a fluctuating one from the earliest times. The Sept. reading is ממּי; that of the Targ., S., Jerome, Syriac, and Saad., כּימי; and even the Codd. read sometimes כּי־מי, sometimes כּימי (compare Mat 24:37, ὥσπερ αἱ ἡμέραι τοῦ Νῶε οὕτως κ.τ.λ - a passage which appears to derive its shape from the one before us, with the reading כימי, and which is expounded in Luk 17:26). If we read כימי, the word זאת must refer to the present, as the turning-point between wrath and mercy; but if we read כי־מי, זאת denotes the pouring out of wrath in connection with the captivity. Both readings are admissible; and as even the Septuagint, with its ἀπὸ τοῦ ὕδατος (from the water), gives an indirect support to the reading כּימי as one word, this may probably merit the preference, as the one best sustained. אשׁר is ubi, quum, as in Num 20:13; Psa 95:9, etc., although it might also be taken as the correlate of the kēn which follows, as in Jer 33:22 (cf., Isa 48:8); and in accordance with the accents, we prefer the former. The present turning-point resembles, in Jehovah's esteem, the days of Noah - those days in which He swore that a flood should not any more come upon the earth (min as in Isa 5:6 and many other passages): for so does He now confirm with an oath His fixed purpose that no such judgment of wrath as that which has just been endured shall ever fall upon Jerusalem again (גּער denotes threatening with a judicial word, which passes at once into effect, as in Isa 51:20). Hendewerk has the following quibbling remark here: "What the comparison with the flood is worth, we may gather from the alter history, which shows how soon the new Jerusalem and the renovated state succumbed to the judicial wrath of God again." To this we reply: (1.) That the prophecy refers to the converted Israel of the last days, whose Jerusalem will never be destroyed again. These last days appear to the prophet, according to the general character of all prophecy, as though linked on to the close of the captivity. For throughout all prophecy, along with the far-sightedness imparted by the Spirit, there was also a short-sightedness which the Spirit did not remove; that is to say, the directly divine element of insight into the future was associated with a human element of hope, which was nevertheless also indirectly divine, inasmuch as it subserved the divine plan of salvation; and this hope brought, as it were, the far distant future into the closest proximity with the troubled present. If, the, we keep this in mind, we shall see that it was quite in order for the prophet to behold the final future on the very edge of the present, and not to see the long and undulating way between. (2.) The Israel which has been plunged by the Romans into the present exile of a thousand years is that part of the nation (Rom 11:25), which has thrust away the eternal mercy and the unchangeable covenant of peace; but this rejection has simply postponed, and not prevented, the full realization of the salvation promised to Israel as a people. The covenant still exists, primarily indeed as an offer on the part of Jehovah, so that it rests with Israel whether it shall continued one-sided or not; but all that is wanted on the part of Israel is faith, to enable it to exchange the shifting soil of its present exile for the rocky foundation of that covenant of peace which has encircled the ages since the captivity (see Hag 2:9), as the covenant with Noah encircled those after the flood with the covenant sign of the rainbow in the cloud.

Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78]

The ground of this "everlasting kindness" is given in Isa 54:9 : "For it is now as at the waters of Noah, when I swore that the waters of Noah should not overflow the earth any more; so have I sworn not to be wroth with thee, and not to threaten thee." The commencement of this v. has been a fluctuating one from the earliest times. The Sept. reading is ממּי; that of the Targ., S., Jerome, Syriac, and Saad., כּימי; and even the Codd. read sometimes כּי־מי, sometimes כּימי (compare Mat 24:37, ὥσπερ αἱ ἡμέραι τοῦ Νῶε οὕτως κ.τ.λ - a passage which appears to derive its shape from the one before us, with the reading כימי, and which is expounded in Luk 17:26). If we read כימי, the word זאת must refer to the present, as the turning-point between wrath and mercy; but if we read כי־מי, זאת denotes the pouring out of wrath in connection with the captivity. Both readings are admissible; and as even the Septuagint, with its ἀπὸ τοῦ ὕδατος (from the water), gives an indirect support to the reading כּימי as one word, this may probably merit the preference, as the one best sustained. אשׁר is ubi, quum, as in Num 20:13; Psa 95:9, etc., although it might also be taken as the correlate of the kēn which follows, as in Jer 33:22 (cf., Isa 48:8); and in accordance with the accents, we prefer the former. The present turning-point resembles, in Jehovah's esteem, the days of Noah - those days in which He swore that a flood should not any more come upon the earth (min as in Isa 5:6 and many other passages): for so does He now confirm with an oath His fixed purpose that no such judgment of wrath as that which has just been endured shall ever fall upon Jerusalem again (גּער denotes threatening with a judicial word, which passes at once into effect, as in Isa 51:20). Hendewerk has the following quibbling remark here: "What the comparison with the flood is worth, we may gather from the alter history, which shows how soon the new Jerusalem and the renovated state succumbed to the judicial wrath of God again." To this we reply: (1.) That the prophecy refers to the converted Israel of the last days, whose Jerusalem will never be destroyed again. These last days appear to the prophet, according to the general character of all prophecy, as though linked on to the close of the captivity. For throughout all prophecy, along with the far-sightedness imparted by the Spirit, there was also a short-sightedness which the Spirit did not remove; that is to say, the directly divine element of insight into the future was associated with a human element of hope, which was nevertheless also indirectly divine, inasmuch as it subserved the divine plan of salvation; and this hope brought, as it were, the far distant future into the closest proximity with the troubled present. If, the, we keep this in mind, we shall see that it was quite in order for the prophet to behold the final future on the very edge of the present, and not to see the long and undulating way between. (2.) The Israel which has been plunged by the Romans into the present exile of a thousand years is that part of the nation (Rom 11:25), which has thrust away the eternal mercy and the unchangeable covenant of peace; but this rejection has simply postponed, and not prevented, the full realization of the salvation promised to Israel as a people. The covenant still exists, primarily indeed as an offer on the part of Jehovah, so that it rests with Israel whether it shall continued one-sided or not; but all that is wanted on the part of Israel is faith, to enable it to exchange the shifting soil of its present exile for the rocky foundation of that covenant of peace which has encircled the ages since the captivity (see Hag 2:9), as the covenant with Noah encircled those after the flood with the covenant sign of the rainbow in the cloud.

Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65]
This - This covenant of grace and peace made with thee shall be as certain and perpetual as that which I made with Noah, that there should never be another flood to drown the world. Wrath - So as to forsake thee utterly.

Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65]

This - This covenant of grace and peace made with thee shall be as certain and perpetual as that which I made with Noah, that there should never be another flood to drown the world. Wrath - So as to forsake thee utterly.

Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826
For this is as the waters of Noah unto me "The same will I do now, as in the days of Noah" - כימי kimey, in one word, in a MS., and some editions; and so the Syriac, Chaldee, Vulgate, Symmachus, Theodotion, Abarbanel, Sal. ben Melec, and Kimchi acknowledge that their copies vary in this place. It is certain that these two words כי מי ki mey, were written formerly as one. Taken as two כי מי ki mey, they signify for as the waters - when as one, כימי kimey, they signify as the days. This latter reading is found in about four of Kennicott's and De Rossi's MSS. In one of my own it appears to have been intended as one word: but he who added the points, which are by a much later hand than the MS. itself, has pointed the letters so as to make the two words which are commonly found in the text. For the waters, Symmachus, Theodotion, the Syriac, Vulgate, and Arabic have days. The former seems to make the best sense; and the ancient Versions, except the Septuagint, support it.

Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826

For this is as the waters of Noah unto me "The same will I do now, as in the days of Noah" - כימי kimey, in one word, in a MS., and some editions; and so the Syriac, Chaldee, Vulgate, Symmachus, Theodotion, Abarbanel, Sal. ben Melec, and Kimchi acknowledge that their copies vary in this place.

It is certain that these two words כי מי ki mey, were written formerly as one. Taken as two כי מי ki mey, they signify for as the waters - when as one, כימי kimey, they signify as the days. This latter reading is found in about four of Kennicott's and De Rossi's MSS. In one of my own it appears to have been intended as one word: but he who added the points, which are by a much later hand than the MS. itself, has pointed the letters so as to make the two words which are commonly found in the text. For the waters, Symmachus, Theodotion, the Syriac, Vulgate, and Arabic have days. The former seems to make the best sense; and the ancient Versions, except the Septuagint, support it.

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