The Pulpit Commentary on Isaiah 45:19

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public domain

I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth; literally, in a place of the land of darkness. Jehovah's oracles have not been given, like those of the necromancers, or those of the heathen gods, in dark places of the earth—caves like that of Trophonius (Pansan; 9:29, § 2), or the inmost recesses (adyta) of temples; but openly on Sinai, or by the mouth of prophets who proclaimed his words to all Israel.

So our Lord says of his own teaching, "I spake openly to the world; I ever taught in the synagogue, and in the temple, whither the Jews always resort; and in secret have I said nothing" (John 18:20).

Seek ye me in vain; rather, seek ye me as a chaos (comp. Jeremiah 2:31, where God says to his people, "Have I been a wilderness unto Israel? a land of darkness?"). God has no more revealed himself to his people as chaotic, confused, disordered, than he has presented the world to them in this condition.!

the Lord speak righteousness, I declare things that are right. There is an allusion to the crooked and ambiguous utterances of the heathen oracles, which rarely gave direct answers or plainly expressed any definite meaning.

God in his utterances never diverges from the straight line of righteousness and truth (comp. Proverbs 8:6).

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