Isaiah 41:5
◄  Isaiah 41:5  ►
New International Version (©2011)
The islands have seen it and fear; the ends of the earth tremble. They approach and come forward;

New Living Translation (©2007)
The lands beyond the sea watch in fear. Remote lands tremble and mobilize for war.

English Standard Version (©2001)
The coastlands have seen and are afraid; the ends of the earth tremble; they have drawn near and come.

New American Standard Bible (©1995)
The coastlands have seen and are afraid; The ends of the earth tremble; They have drawn near and have come.

King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
The isles saw it, and feared; the ends of the earth were afraid, drew near, and came.

Holman Christian Standard Bible (©2009)
The islands see and are afraid, the whole earth trembles. They approach and arrive.

International Standard Version (©2012)
"The coastlands have looked and are afraid; the ends of the earth have drawn near together and come forward.

NET Bible (©2006)
The coastlands see and are afraid; the whole earth trembles; they approach and come.

GOD'S WORD® Translation (©1995)
The coastlands have seen him and are afraid. The ends of the earth tremble. They have come near and gathered together.

King James 2000 Bible (©2003)
The coastlands saw it, and feared; the ends of the earth were afraid, drew near, and came.

American King James Version
The isles saw it, and feared; the ends of the earth were afraid, drew near, and came.

American Standard Version
The isles have seen, and fear; the ends of the earth tremble; they draw near, and come.

Douay-Rheims Bible
The islands saw it, and feared, the ends of the earth were astonished, they drew near, and came.

Darby Bible Translation
The isles saw it, and feared; the ends of the earth trembled: they drew near, and came.

English Revised Version
The isles saw, and feared; the ends of the earth trembled: they drew near, and came.

Webster's Bible Translation
The isles saw it, and feared; the ends of the earth were afraid, drew near, and came.

World English Bible
The islands have seen, and fear. The ends of the earth tremble. They approach, and come.

Young's Literal Translation
Seen have isles and fear, ends of the earth tremble, They have drawn near, yea, they come.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

41:1-9 Can any heathen god raise up one in righteousness, make what use of him he pleases, and make him victorious over the nations? The Lord did so with Abraham, or rather, he would do so with Cyrus. Sinners encourage one another in the ways of sin; shall not the servants of the living God stir up one another in his service? God's people are the seed of Abraham his friend. This is certainly the highest title ever given to a mortal. It means that Abraham, by Divine grace, was made like to God, and that he was admitted to communion with Him. Happy are the servants of the Lord, whom he has called to be his friends, and to walk with him in faith and holy obedience. Let not such as have thus been favoured yield to fear; for the contest may be sharp, but the victory shall be sure.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 5. - The isles saw it, and feared. A general terror seized the nations on the conquest of the Medes by Cyrus. Croesus of Lydia, Nabonidus of Babylon, and Amasis of Egypt, were at once drawn together by the common danger, and made alliance offensive and defensive (Herod., 1:77). The weaker tribes and peoples gave themselves up for lost. Scarcely any resistance seems to have been offered to the Persian arms by the tribes between the Halys and Indus, the Jaxartes and the Indian Ocean. Lydia and Babylon alone made a stout fight; but even these were conquered without very much difficulty. The ends of the earth... drew near; i.e. distant nations held (will hold) consultation together on the danger which threatens them. The league of Lydia, Babylon, and Egypt is the only known instance of such "drawing near" (see the preceding note). Isaiah anticipates marked consultations and exhortations with respect to the idol-gods, in which trust should be put; but perhaps he is scarcely serious in vers. 6, 7. Rather he is indulging his sarcastic humour at the expense of the idols and of those who put their trust in them. (For instances, however, of actual trust in particular idols, see 'Records of the Past,' vol. 4. p. 58; Herod., 5:67; 8:64,)

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

The isles saw it, and feared,.... Not the victory which Abraham got over the kings; nor Cyrus's expedition against Babylon, and other nations, and his deliverance of the Jews; but the progress of the Gospel, through the ministry of the Apostle Paul: the idolatrous inhabitants of the Gentile nations saw great multitudes embracing and professing the Gospel; they saw their idols neglected, and their temples abandoned; they feared what would be the consequence of all this, that their old religion their fathers retained, and they were brought up in, would be abolished; and especially a panic seized the priests on this account, whose livelihood depended upon it:

the ends of the earth were afraid; for the sound of the Gospel by him, and other apostles, went into all the earth, and their words to the end of the world, Romans 10:18 meaning the inhabitants that dwelt in the furthest parts of the earth, where ignorance and idolatry wholly reigned: they drew near, and came: not to God, nor to Abraham, or Cyrus; rather to their gods, to exert themselves in the defence of their religion; or, which is best, they got together to consult what was proper to be done on such an emergency.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

5. feared—that they would be subdued.

drew near, and came—together, for mutual defense.

Isaiah 41:5 Parallel Commentaries

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God's Help to Israel
…4Who has worked and done it, calling the generations from the beginning? I the LORD, the first, and with the last; I am he. 5The isles saw it, and feared; the ends of the earth were afraid, drew near, and came. 6They helped every one his neighbor; and every one said to his brother, Be of good courage. …

Joshua 5:1 Now when all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and all the Canaanite kings along the coast heard how the LORD had dried up the Jordan before the Israelites until they had crossed over, their hearts melted in fear and they no longer had the courage to face the Israelites.
Psalm 67:7 May God bless us still, so that all the ends of the earth will fear him.
Isaiah 41:1 "Be silent before me, you islands! Let the nations renew their strength! Let them come forward and speak; let us meet together at the place of judgment.
Isaiah 41:6 they help each other and say to their companions, "Be strong!"
Ezekiel 26:15 "This is what the Sovereign LORD says to Tyre: Will not the coastlands tremble at the sound of your fall, when the wounded groan and the slaughter takes place in you?
Ezekiel 26:16 Then all the princes of the coast will step down from their thrones and lay aside their robes and take off their embroidered garments. Clothed with terror, they will sit on the ground, trembling every moment, appalled at you.
Ezekiel 26:18 Now the coastlands tremble on the day of your fall; the islands in the sea are terrified at your collapse.'