Isaiah 54:9

Rebuke - To reprimand; strongly warn; restrain.

Wroth - To be provoked; angered.

For this is as the waters of Noah unto me "The same will I do now, as in the days of Noah" - כימי kimey, in one word, in a MS., and some editions; and so the Syriac, Chaldee, Vulgate, Symmachus, Theodotion, Abarbanel, Sal. ben Melec, and Kimchi acknowledge that their copies vary in this place.

It is certain that these two words כי מי ki mey, were written formerly as one. Taken as two כי מי ki mey, they signify for as the waters - when as one, כימי kimey, they signify as the days. This latter reading is found in about four of Kennicott's and De Rossi's MSS. In one of my own it appears to have been intended as one word: but he who added the points, which are by a much later hand than the MS. itself, has pointed the letters so as to make the two words which are commonly found in the text. For the waters, Symmachus, Theodotion, the Syriac, Vulgate, and Arabic have days. The former seems to make the best sense; and the ancient Versions, except the Septuagint, support it.

For this is as the waters of Noah unto me - As it was in the time of the flood of waters, so shall it be now. 'I then solemnly promised that the waters should not again drown the earth, and I have kept that promise. I now promise with equal solemnity that I will bestow perpetual favor on my true people, and will shed upon them eternal and unchanging blessings.' 'The waters of Noah,' here mean evidently the flood that came upon the world in his time, and from which he and his family were saved. Lowth, on the authority of one manuscript and of the Vulgate, Syriac, Symmachus, and Theodotion, reads this, 'In the days of Noah? But the authority is not sufficient to change the Hebrew text, and the sense is as clear as if it were changed.

As I have sworn - Genesis 8:21-22. God appeals to this not only because the oath and promise had been made, but because it had been kept.

That I would not be wroth - The idea seems here to be that no calamities should spread over the whole church, and sweep it away, as the waters swept over the world in the time of Noah, or as desolation swept over Jerusalem and the whole land of Canaan in the time of the exile at Babylon. There would be indeed persecutions and calamities, but the church would be safe amidst all these trials. The period would never arrive when God would forsake the church, and when he would leave it to perish. One has only to recollect how God has guarded the church, even during the most dangerous periods, to see how remarkably this has been fulfilled. His covenant has been as sure as that which was made with Noah, and it will be as secure and firm to the end of time.

54:9 This - This covenant of grace and peace made with thee shall be as certain and perpetual as that which I made with Noah, that there should never be another flood to drown the world. Wrath - So as to forsake thee utterly.