Isaiah 45:16, commentary and pictures

Isaiah 45:16 stands in a passage of Isaiah 45 that lays open God's purpose for His people, declaring shame for those opposed to Him while holding out salvation, righteousness, and strength in the Lord. That chapter unfolds the greatness of God's love and compassion on a scale that demands stretched powers of mind to comprehend. It belongs with the promises running through Isaiah 44 and 45 that show what the Lord has done for His people and what He will do for them if they follow on to know the Lord, whose going forth is prepared as the morning, promises that call for much greater appreciation.

All makers of idols shall be ashamed and confounded together and shall go to confusion together. Their shame stands in direct contrast to salvation in the Lord, for idols are powerless and cannot save, while the Lord alone is God and Saviour who is righteous and saves, and Israel shall be saved in Him with an everlasting salvation, finding righteousness and strength and never being ashamed nor confounded world without end. That contrast warns against turning from God to finite human beings for wisdom. Trust in idols ends in shame and confusion, while trust in the Lord Jehovah gives everlasting strength and perfect peace to the mind stayed on Him, so every mind should be kept free from everything that depresses it and from everything that has an influence to depress.

The verse is valuable study to be put in form and brought into schools, better than romance or fables, because it holds the loftiest themes of thought, pure and excellent language, and elevating and ennobling principles. It points to the city to be sought whose Builder and Maker is God, teaching that heaven is home and citizenship is above, that lives must not be devoted to a world soon to be destroyed, and that the Word of God must be revealed in living characters.