(12) When there was no strange god among you.--Better, and there was . . . It was no heathen oracle or soothsayer that had foretold the restoration. Israel as a people, through its whole future history, was to be a living witness of the oneness and eternity of its God, and the eternity implies (Isaiah 43:13) omnipotence.

Verse 12. - I have declared, etc. Translate, I announced, and delivered, add proclaimed (the deliverance), when there was no strange god among you; 1.e I did what the idol-gods cannot do - announced deliverance, and effected it, and further proclaimed (or published) it, at the time when you Israelites had no idolatry among you. The allusion is to the deliverance of Jerusalem from Sennacherib, which God announced by the mouth of Isaiah (Isaiah 37:33-35), effected by the hand of his angel (Isaiah 37:36), and then caused to be published by Isaiah, who wrote the two accounts of the deliverance - both that in his own prophecy, and that in the Second Book of Kings (2 Kings 19:20-35). At that time there was no (open) idolatry in Judah, since Hezekiah had destroyed the idols (2 Kings 18:4). Therefore ye are my witnesses... that I am God; literally, and ye are my witnesses, and I am God. Ye can bear witness of the truth of what I have asserted in the previous portion of the verse, and your witness to this effect proves me to be God.

43:8-13 Idolaters are called to appear in defence of their idols. Those who make them, and trust in them, are like unto them. They have the shape and faculties of men; but they have not common sense. But God's people know the power of his grace, the sweetness of his comforts, the kind care of his providence, and the truth of his promise. All servants of God can give such an account of what he has wrought in them, and done for them, as may lead others to know and believe his power, truth, and loveI have declared, and I have saved, and I have showed,.... The Targum is,

"I have showed to Abraham your father what should come to pass; I redeemed you out of Egypt, as I swore to him between the pieces; and I caused you to hear the doctrine of the law at Sinai.''

But the sense is, that God had declared by his prophets, long before the Messiah came, that he would send him; that he should come and save his people by his obedience, sufferings, and death; accordingly he was come, and was the author of salvation; the Lord had wrought out salvation by him, as he had declared he would; and this he had shown, published, and made known by the everlasting Gospel, preached among all nations:

when there was no strange god among you; that assisted in this salvation; the arm of Christ alone wrought it out: or, "and this is not strange among you" (i); this work of salvation wrought out is not strange among you; it is well known unto you, being published in the Gospel.

(i) "et non est in vobis alienum vel peregrinum", Musculus.