He tells them that idolatry is an ingrained evil, and (as the prophet Isaiah [Cap. 48, 8.] 1) says: "From the womb you are called a transgressor." "Sin has accustomed them from their mother's womb." You started idolatry when you came out of Egypt and even today you do not desist from it.
V. 6. Therefore the sword shall come upon their cities.
For the king of Assyria had taken many cities, even the whole tribe of Naphtali, before he entered their land.
V. 7. My people are tired of turning to me.
You will never be free from this yoke with which I oppress you, so you will be servile. Always understand it in a temporal way. But when I return, that is, when I have sent my Son into the world, then you will be able to repent and thus be saved spiritually.
V. 9. that I will not do according to my fierce anger.
Though I shall be mightily afflicted, yet will I that the name of mercy may remain uninjured unto me, and I will not exercise my wrath as a man that knoweth no bounds of his wrath, whose indignation is not satisfied, except his adversaries be brought to ruin from the foundation of the world. Of this you have an example in the suffering of Christ. The Jews were not satisfied that the
1) Weimar edition erroneously: "Esaj. 49, 1".
Man Christ was miserable, lowly and rejected, they wanted to exterminate him from the ground up, even by the most cruel death. Therefore he says here: I will not act foolishly like a man, but I will punish as God, whose own it is to have mercy.
V. 10. He will roar like a lion.
The whole scripture compares the roaring of the lion with the voice of the gospel. Thus it is said in Amos [Cap. 3, 8.], "The lion roareth, who shall not be afraid?" Now this is the lion that shall roar for his young, for his children, 2) of the tribe of Judah. Therefore this lion will roar against all the wicked and those who resist him, so much so that he will also threaten them with all terrible punishments if they do not stop resisting him.
V. 11. And those in Egypt will also be terrified (avolabunt).
By Assyria and Egypt he understands the Gentiles, whom he will call to the Gospel along with the Jews, as if to say, "Not ye alone, but the Gentiles also shall follow the Gospel; there shall be One Shepherd and One Flock. - "Into their houses." That is, "into the houses where they enter" (inker), not which they themselves have built or chosen, 3) but which I will give, that is, into the Church to which I will give My gifts.
2) In the editions a comma is missing here, which is nevertheless necessary, because "the lion from the tribe Juda" belongs together.
3) Instead of a1>6A6r8nt in our template, we assumed Z6riut.