Isaiah 48:12 - Exposition

O Jacob and Israel (comp. Isaiah 40:27 ; Isaiah 41:8 , Isaiah 41:14 ; Isaiah 43:1 , Isaiah 43:22 ; Isaiah 44:1 , Isaiah 44:21 ; Isaiah 46:3 ; Isaiah 48:1 ). The figure is used which rhetoricians call hendiadys. The two names designate one and the same object. My called . "Called" and "chosen" from of old, out of all the nations of the earth (comp. Isaiah 41:9 ; Isaiah 44:1 , Isaiah 44:2 , etc.); therefore bound to " hear " and to attend. Still more bound, considering who it is by whom they have been called—I AM HE — i.e. "I am the absolute and eternally unchangeable One, the Alpha and Omega of all history" (Delitzsch). The first , and also the Last , " from whom and to whom are all things" ( Romans 11:36 ).