Commentary upon the Prophecy of Isaiah

HE now shows for whose sakes he foretold that these things should befall the Egyptians and Ethiopians; to wit, to the end the Jews might learn to hope in God in the midst of their afflictions, and might not call strangers to succour them; which the Lord had forbidden. He calls them their expectation, because the Jews always turned ⟨p. 203⟩their eyes towards them, as oft as they were pressed with any encumbrance, putting their trust in them.¹ For we are wont to cast our eyes upon that, from whence we look for succour: and thence it is that to look, is often taken among the Hebrews, to hope. But they were to look unto God only: so that their wandering lightness is here reproved. The like ought to happen unto us, and that justly; that being made naked, and forsaken of all, we might be plunged in our own shame and reproach; because we refuse the refuge which God hath set before us, when he calls us to himself, having suffered our selves to be seduced by Satan's illusions.

HE now shewes for whose sakes hee foretold that these things should befall the Egyptians and Ethiopians; to wit, to the end the Iewes might learne to hope in God in the midst of their afflictions, and might not call strangers to succour them; which the Lord had forbidden. He calles them their expectation, because the Iewes alwaies turned