Isaiah 63:16 - Exposition

Doubtless thou art our Father ; rather, for thou art our Father. This is the ground of their appeal to God. As their Father, he must love them, and must be ready to listen to them. Abraham and Isaac, their earthly fathers, were of no service, lent them no aid, seemed to have ceased to feel any interest in them. It cannot be justly argued from this that the Jews looked to Abraham and Isaac as actual "patron saints," or directed towards them their religious regards. Had this been so, there would have been abundant evidence of it. Thou, O Lord, art our Father (comp. Isaiah 64:8 ; and see also Deuteronomy 32:6 , and Jeremiah 3:4 ). Though the relationship was revealed under the old covenant, it was practically realized only upon the rarest occasions . Our Redeemer; thy name , etc.; rather, our Redeemer has been thy name from of old. "Redeemer" first appears as a name of God in Job ( Job 19:25 ) and in the Psalms ( Psalms 19:14 ; Psalms 78:35 ). It is an epitheton usitatum only in the later portion of Isaiah. There it occurs thirteen times.