Isaiah 43:12 - Exposition

I have declared , etc. Translate, I announced , and delivered , add proclaimed ( the deliverance ), when there was no strange god among you ; i . 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.