Isaiah 48:18
Translations
King James Version (KJV)
O that you had listened to my commandments! then had your peace been as a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea:
American King James Version (AKJV)
O that you had listened to my commandments! then had your peace been as a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea:
American Standard Version (ASV)
Oh that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea:
Basic English Translation (BBE)
If only you had given ear to my orders, then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea:
Webster's Revision
O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea:
World English Bible
Oh that you had listened to my commandments! then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea:
English Revised Version (ERV)
Oh that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea:
Definitions for Isaiah 48:18
Clarke's Isaiah 48:18 Bible Commentary
As a river "Like the river" - That is, the Euphrates.
Barnes's Isaiah 48:18 Bible Commentary
O that thou hadst heardened to my commandments! - This expresses the earnest wish and desire of God. He would greatly have preferred that they should have kept his law. He had no wish that they should sin, and that these judgments should come upon them. The doctrine taught here is, that God greatly prefers that people should keep his laws. He does not desire that they should be sinners, or that they should be punished. It was so with regard to the Jews; and it is so with regard to all. In all cases, at all times, and with reference to all his creatures, he prefers holiness to sin; he sincerely desires that there should be perfect obedience to his commandments. It is to be remarked also that this is not merely prospective, or a declaration in the abstract. It relates to sin which had been actually committed, and proves that even in regard to that, God would have preferred that it had not been committed. A declaration remarkably similar to this, occurs in Psalm 81:13-16 :
O that my people had hearkened unto me,
And Israel had walked in my ways;
I should soon have subdued their' enemies,
And turned their hand against their adversaries
The haters of the Lord should have submitted themselves unto him:
But their time should have endured forever.
He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat;
And with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee.
Compare Deuteronomy 22:29; Isaiah 5:1-7; Ezekiel 18:23-32; Matthew 23:37; Luke 19:21.
Then had thy peace been as a river - The word 'peace' here (שׁלום shâlôm) means properly wholeness, soundness, and then health, welfare, prosperity, good of every kind. It then denotes peace, as opposed to war, and also concord and friendship. Here it evidently denotes prosperity in general, as opposed to the calamities which actually came upon them.
As a river - That is, abundant - like a full, flowing river that fills the banks, and that conveys fertility and blessedness through a land. 'The pagan, in order to represent the Universal power and beneficence of Jupiter, used the symbol of a river flowing from his throne; and to this the Sycophant in Plautus alludes (Trium. Act iv. Sc. 2, v. 98), in his saying that he had been at the head of that river:
Ad caput amuis, quod de coelo exoritur, sub solio Jovis.
See also Wemyss' Key to the Symbolical Language of Scripture, Art. River. Rivers are often used by the sacred writers, and particularly by Isaiah, as symbolic of plenty and prosperity Isaiah 32:2; Isaiah 33:21; Isaiah 41:18; Isaiah 43:19.
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Wesley's Isaiah 48:18 Bible Commentary
48:18 As the waves - Infinite and continual.