--- title: "Isaiah 51 - Study King James Bible with barnes notes on the whole bible" description: "Read Isaiah 51 with barnes notes on the whole bible commentary. 1 Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the LORD: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye ar" image: "/_app/immutable/assets/missing.C7wGMEZ6.jpg" url: "https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/barnes-notes-on-the-whole-bible/isaiah/51" --- [ Read](/kjv/isaiah/51)[ Commentary](/study/isaiah/51)[ Interlinear](/interlinear/isaiah/51) Audio 1 Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the LORD: look unto the rock *whence* ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit *whence* ye are digged. 2 Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah *that* bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him. 3 For the LORD shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody. 4 ¶ Hearken unto me, my people; and give ear unto me, O my nation: for a law shall proceed from me, and I will make my judgment to rest for a light of the people. 5 My righteousness *is* near; my salvation is gone forth, and mine arms shall judge the people; the isles shall wait upon me, and on mine arm shall they trust. 6 Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner: but my salvation shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished. 7 ¶ Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart *is* my law; fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings. 8 For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool: but my righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvation from generation to generation. 9 ¶ Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. *Art* thou not it that hath cut Rahab, *and* wounded the dragon? 10 *Art* thou not it which hath dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; that hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over? 11 Therefore the redeemed of the LORD shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy *shall be* upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy; *and* sorrow and mourning shall flee away. 12 I, *even* I, *am* he that comforteth you: who *art* thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man *that* shall die, and of the son of man *which* shall be made *as* grass; 13 And forgettest the LORD thy maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth; and hast feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, as if he were ready to destroy? and where *is* the fury of the oppressor?* 14 The captive exile hasteneth that he may be loosed, and that he should not die in the pit, nor that his bread should fail. 15 But I *am* the LORD thy God, that divided the sea, whose waves roared: The LORD of hosts *is* his name. 16 And I have put my words in thy mouth, and I have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion, Thou *art* my people. 17 ¶ Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the LORD the cup of his fury; thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, *and* wrung *them* out. 18 *There is* none to guide her among all the sons *whom* she hath brought forth; neither *is there any* that taketh her by the hand of all the sons *that* she hath brought up. 19 These two *things* are come unto thee; who shall be sorry for thee? desolation, and destruction, and the famine, and the sword: by whom shall I comfort thee?** 20 Thy sons have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets, as a wild bull in a net: they are full of the fury of the LORD, the rebuke of thy God. 21 ¶ Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted, and drunken, but not with wine: 22 Thus saith thy Lord the LORD, and thy God *that* pleadeth the cause of his people, Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, *even* the dregs of the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again: 23 But I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee; which have said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go over: and thou hast laid thy body as the ground, and as the street, to them that went over. [Isaiah 50](/study/isaiah/50) [Isaiah 52](/study/isaiah/52) ## Commentary To verse 1 **Hearken unto me -**That is, to the God of their fathers, who now addresses them. They are regarded as in exile and bondage, and as desponding in regard to their prospects. In this situation, God, or perhaps more properly the Messiah (compare the notes at [Isaiah 1:0](/kjv/isaiah/1/0)), is introduced as addressing them with the assurances of deliverance. **Ye that follow after righteousness -**This is addressed evidently to those who sought to be righteous, and who truly feared the Lord. There was a portion of the nation that continued faithful to Yahweh. They still loved and worshipped him in exile, and they were anxiously looking for deliverance and for a return to their own land. **Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn -**To Abraham the founder of the nation. The figure is taken from the act of quarrying stone for the purposes of building; and the essential idea here is, that God had formed the nation from the beginning, as a mason constructs a building; that he had, so to speak, taken the materials rough and unhewn from the very quarry; that he had shaped, and fitted them, and moulded them into an edifice. The idea is not that their origin was dishonorable or obscure. It is not that Abraham was not an honored ancestor, or that they should be ashamed of the founder of their nation. But the idea is, that God had had the entire moulding of the nation; that he had taken Abraham and Sarah from a distant land, and bad formed them into a great people and nation for his own purpose. The argument is, that he who had done this was able to raise them up from captivity, and make them again a great people. Probably allusion is made to this passage by the Saviour in [Matthew 3:9](/kjv/matthew/3/9), where he says, ‘For I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.’ **The hole of the pit -**The word rendered ‘hole’ means such an excavation as men make who are taking stones from a quarry. It expresses substantially the same idea as the previous member of the verse. This language is sometimes addressed to Christians, with a view to produce humility by reminding them that they have been taken by God from a state of sin, and raised up, as it were, from a deep and dark pit of pollution. But this is not the sense of the passage, nor will it bear such an application. It may be used to denote that God has taken them, as stone is taken from the quarry; that he found them in their natural state as unhewn blocks of marble are; that he has moulded and formed them by his own agency, and fitted them into his spiritual temple; and that they owe all the beauty and grace of their Christian deportment to him; that this is an argument to prove that he who had done so much for them as to transform them, so to speak, from rough and unsightly blocks to polished stones, fitted for his spiritual temple on earth, is able to keep them still, and to fit them for his temple above. Such is the argument in the passage before us; and such a use of it is, of course, perfectly legitimate and fair. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#website","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com","name":"Real Bible Believers","description":"RBB","publisher":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#/schema/person/e966585dde703268e7f6ae890ea98509"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/search?q={search_term_string}","query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/barnes-notes-on-the-whole-bible/isaiah/51#primaryimage","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/_app/immutable/assets/missing.C7wGMEZ6.jpg","contentUrl":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/_app/immutable/assets/missing.C7wGMEZ6.jpg","width":672,"height":448,"caption":"Real Bible Believers"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/barnes-notes-on-the-whole-bible/isaiah/51#webpage","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/barnes-notes-on-the-whole-bible/isaiah/51","name":"Isaiah 51 - Study King James Bible with barnes notes on the whole bible","isPartOf":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/barnes-notes-on-the-whole-bible/isaiah/51#primaryimage"},"author":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#/schema/person/e966585dde703268e7f6ae890ea98509"},"description":"Read Isaiah 51 with barnes notes on the whole bible commentary. 1 Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the LORD: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye ar","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/barnes-notes-on-the-whole-bible/isaiah/51#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/barnes-notes-on-the-whole-bible/isaiah/51"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/barnes-notes-on-the-whole-bible/isaiah/51#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/","name":"Home"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study","name":"Study Bible"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/barnes-notes-on-the-whole-bible","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/barnes-notes-on-the-whole-bible","name":"barnes notes on the whole bible"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":4,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/barnes-notes-on-the-whole-bible/isaiah","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/barnes-notes-on-the-whole-bible/isaiah","name":"Isaiah"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":5,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/barnes-notes-on-the-whole-bible/isaiah/51","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/barnes-notes-on-the-whole-bible/isaiah/51","name":"51"}}]},{"@type":["Person","Organization"],"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#/schema/person/e966585dde703268e7f6ae890ea98509","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#personlogo","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/android-chrome-512x512.png","contentUrl":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/android-chrome-512x512.png","width":512,"height":512},"logo":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#personlogo"},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/RBiblebeliever","https://www.facebook.com/RBibleBelievers"]}]} ```