Isaiah 48:19

WEB

your seed also had been as the sand, and the offspring of your body like its grains: his name would not be cut off nor destroyed from before me.

KJV

Thy seed also had been as the sand, and the offspring of thy bowels like the gravel thereof; his name should not have been cut off nor destroyed from before me.

Commentary

Thy seed had also been as the sand,.... Upon the sea shore, as numerous as that, as was promised to Abraham, Gen 22:17 , and the offspring of thy bowels as the gravel thereof; that is, of the sand; the little stones that are in it, which lie in great nu mbers on the sea shore; the same thing expressed in different words, denoting the number of their posterity, as it would have been, had they received the Messiah, his doctrines and ordinances: it may be rendered, "and the offspring", or "those that go out of thy bowels", that spring from thee, are born of thee, "as the bowels thereof" (q), that is, of the sea; as what is within it, particularly the fishes of it, which are innumerable; and so Aben Ezra and Jarchi interpret it; and which sense is mentioned by Kimchi and Ben Melech: his name should not have been cut off nor destroyed from before me: the name of Israel, as the Targum has it; the name of the people of the Jews is no more in the land where they dwelt; they are cut off as a nation; their city and temple are destroyed, where they appear no more before the Lord; which would not have been, had they hearkened to the Messiah, embraced his truths, and been obedient to his commands. (q) "sicut viscera ejus", Montanus; "interiora maris"; Munster.