Isaiah 48:19 - Exposition

Thy seed also had been as the sand . Israel, at the close of the Captivity, was "a remnant" ( Isaiah 37:31 ), a "very small remnant" ( Isaiah 1:9 ); the ten tribes were for the most part absorbed into the heathen among whom they had been scattered; the two tribes had dwindled in number through the hardships of the Captivity, and were scarcely more than a "handful." Less than fifty thousand returned with Zerubbabel ( Ezra 2:64 ); less than two thousand males with Ezra ( Ezra 8:2-20 ). Had Israel not been disobedient, the promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would have been literally fulfilled, and the descendants of Abraham would have been millions upon millions, instead of being one or two hundred thousand. The offspring of thy bowels like the gravel thereof ; rather, like the grains thereof; i.e. the grains of the sand. His name; i.e. "Israel's name." Should not have been cut off. Israel's name had not been wholly "cut off" or "destroyed." But it had been approximately "cut off." Israel was no more a people, but only a horde of slaves. The restoration to Palestine was a resurrection—the re-creation of a nation which, humanly speaking, had ceased to be.