Isaiah 40:22

"Haven’t you known? Haven’t you heard? Haven’t you been told from the beginning? Haven’t you understood from the foundations of the earth?"

Key Reflection

The audience in Isaiah’s time would have understood this verse as a profound challenge to their existing worldview, emphasizing that God had revealed His sovereignty and power from the very beginning of creation itself. By asking rhetorical questions about knowledge, hearing, and understanding, Isaiah underscores that these truths were not hidden but openly proclaimed from the moment the earth was formed, asserting God’s eternal and unchanging nature as the sovereign Creator.

From the Scholars: Barnes' Notes

It is he that sitteth -Margin, ‘Him that sitteth,’ that is, have you not known him? The Hebrew literally means ‘the sitter, or he sitting on the circle of the each;’ and it may be connected either withIsaiah 40:21, ‘Have ye not known him sitting on the circle of the earth?’ or withIsaiah 40:18, ‘What likeness will ye compare to him that sitteth on the circle of the earth?’ In either case the phrase is designed to show the majesty and glory of God. The word ‘sitteth’ refers to God as a sovereign or monarch, making the circle of the earth his throne. The circle of the earth -Or rather, “above” (על‛al) the circle of the earth.

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