(5) He that created.--The accumulation of Divine attributes, as enhancing the solemnity of a revelation, has an earlier parallel in Amos 5:8; a later one in Zechariah 12:1.

Verse 5. - Thus saith God the Lord; literally, thus saith the (One) God, Jehovah. The entire utterance, vers. 1-4, is the utterance of God; but, as that fact is gathered by inference, not asserted, the prophet suddenly stops, and makes a new beginning. It must be made perfectly clear that the announcement of the "Servant of the Lord" and his mission are from the Almighty; and so we have the solemn announcement of the present verse. He that created the heavens, etc. (comp. Isaiah 40:12, 22). The earth, and that which cometh out of it; i.e. all that the earth produces - gold, and silver, and precious stones, and corn, and wine, and luscious fruits, and lovely flowers - all that sustains life, and all that makes life delightful - nay more, life itself - the breath and the spirit that make men living beings.

42:5-12 The work of redemption brings back man to the obedience he owes to God as his Maker. Christ is the light of the world. And by his grace he opens the understandings Satan has blinded, and sets at liberty from the bondage of sin. The Lord has supported his church. And now he makes new promises, which shall as certainly be fulfilled as the old ones were. When the Gentiles are brought into the church, he is glorified in them and by them. Let us give to God those things which are his, taking heed that we do not serve the creature more than the Creator.Thus saith God the Lord,.... The God of the world, as the Targum. This, with what follows, is a preface to the call of Christ, to the great work of redemption; setting forth the greatness of God as a Creator, that calls him to it, and thereby encouraging him as man and Mediator in it, as well as the faith of his people to regard him as their Saviour and Redeemer, and believe that this work he was called unto should be performed by him; for what is it that God, the Creator of all things, cannot do?

he that created the heavens, and stretched them out: he first made them out of nothing, and stretched out the firmament of them as a curtain and canopy over the earth, and them as a tent for himself to dwell in, Isaiah 40:22,

he that spread forth the earth; into the length and breadth it has, for man and beast to dwell on it:

and that which cometh out of it; grass, herbs, and trees, which he has spread all over it:

he that giveth breath unto the people upon it; as he did to man at first, he breathed into him the breath of life, and as he gives to all since, Genesis 2:7,

and spirit to them that walk therein; not only breath in common with the beasts of the field, and other creatures, but a rational spirit, or a reasonable soul, an intellective faculty, a capacity of understanding things, as brutes have not. Jarchi interprets this of the Holy Spirit, which God gives to them that walk before him.