(7) They are created now . . .--The verb is an unusual one, as applied to the events of history. What is meant is that the things which had been from the beginning in the mind of God are now, for the first time, manifested, through the prophet, as about to pass into act. What these are the prophet develops in the following chapters, as including the spiritual redemption and restoration of Israel. They were kept in store, as it were, to make men wonder (Romans 16:25-26).

Even before the day when . . .--Better, and before to-day thou heardest them not. . . . The reason given for what we might almost call this method of reserve and reticence, was that the people had been till now unprepared to receive the truth, and in their state it would but have increased their condemnation (John 16:12; Mark 4:33).

Verse 7. - They are created now. The revelation to man of what has lain secret in God's counsels from all eternity is a sort of creation. As Nagelbach well says, it converts the λόγος ἐνδιάθετος into a λόγος προφορικός and therefore is one step towards actual accomplishment. The mystery of "the Servant of the Lord," and of atonement and salvation through him, had hitherto been hid away - "hid in God" (Ephesians 3:9), and was now for the first time to be made known to such as had "eyes to see" and "cars to hear" by the teaching of the evangelical prophet. Even before the day when thou heardest them not; rather, and before to-day thou heardest them not. Whatever shadows of evangelic truth are discernible in the Law and in the earlier psalms, they did not constitute a revelation of the way of salvation at all comparable to that contained in Isaiah's later chapters. Lest thou shouldest say, Behold, I knew them. If the "new things" of Isaiah's prophecy had been revealed many centuries before, they would not have impressed the Jews of Isaiah's time, or even of the Captivity period, as they did by having been reserved to a comparatively late date. They would have seemed to most of them an old and trite story.

48:1-8 The Jews valued themselves on descent from Jacob, and used the name of Jehovah as their God. They prided themselves respecting Jerusalem and the temple, yet there was no holiness in their lives. If we are not sincere in religion, we do but take the name of the Lord in vain. By prophecy they were shown how God would deal with them, long before it came to pass. God has said and done enough to prevent men's boasting of themselves, which makes the sin and ruin of the proud worse; sooner or later every mouth shall be stopped, and all become silent before Him. We are all born children of disobedience. Where original sin is, actual sin will follow. Does not the conscience of every man witness to the truth of Scripture? May the Lord prove us, and render us doers of the word.They are created now, and not from the beginning,.... Not that they were now done or brought into being, for as yet Cyrus was not born; though the raising of him up, and holding his right hand, and his executing the counsel of God, are spoken of as if they were already done, because of the certainty of them, Isaiah 45:1. Aben Ezra interprets "created" by "decreed"; though these were not now decreed by God; for no new decrees are made by him; but those which were made by him of old were now revealed and made manifest by prophecy, which is the sense of the phrase; so Kimchi observes,

"the time when they went out of the mouth of God is the time of their creation.''

Thus in like manner the incarnation of Christ, his sufferings and death, and salvation by him, things decreed from eternity, are spoken of in this prophecy as if actually done, because of the clear manifestation and certainty of them:

even before the day when thou heardest them not; they were in the breast of God, kept and reserved in his mind, and therefore are before called hidden things, before the Israelites heard anything of them; as were the things respecting Christ, and salvation by him; which were not only in God, who created all things by Christ, but were revealed before the Israelites had any knowledge of them, even to Adam and Eve, immediately after their fall; and were spoken of by all the holy prophets from the beginning of the world:

lest thou shouldest say, behold, I knew them; lest they should ascribe their present knowledge of them to their own sagacity and penetration; as if they were not obliged to a divine revelation, but of themselves had got the secret, and became acquainted with these things.