15 Look down from the heavens, and behold from the habitation of thy holiness and of thy glory! Where is thy zeal and thy strength, the sounding of thy bowels and of thy tender mercies? Are they restrained toward me? 16 For thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: thou, Jehovah, art our Father; our Redeemer, from everlasting, is thy name. 17 Why, O Jehovah, hast thou made us to err from thy ways, hast hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants' sake, the tribes of thine inheritance. 18 Thy holy people have possessed [it] but a little while: our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary. 19 We have become [like those] over whom thou never barest rule, those not called by thy name.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Isaiah 63:15-19
Commentary on Isaiah 63:15-19
(Read Isaiah 63:15-19)
They beseech him to look down on the abject condition of their once-favoured nation. Would it not be glorious to his name to remove the veil from their hearts, to return to the tribes of his inheritance? The Babylonish captivity, and the after-deliverance of the Jews, were shadows of the events here foretold. The Lord looks down upon us in tenderness and mercy. Spiritual judgments are more to be dreaded than any other calamities; and we should most carefully avoid those sins which justly provoke the Lord to leave men to themselves and to their deceiver. "Our Redeemer from everlasting" is thy name; thy people have always looked upon thee as the God to whom they might appeal. The Lord will hear the prayers of those who belong to him, and deliver them from those not called by his name.