Isaiah 63:7

I will mention the lovingkindnesses of the Lord,....

THE chapter opens with a declaration of our glorious Lord, as to His ultimate overthrow of His foes. He declares that He will tread down all the enemies of His people, as grapes are trod in the winepress. The chapter, as you know, begins with that remarkable exclamation, "Who is this that comes from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah?" The Prophet, having beheld the glorious vision, and heard the proclamation of the victorious Hero, felt his soul stirred within him. It is usual for saints' hearts to burn within them when Christ is near.

THE chapter opens with a declaration of our glorious Lord, as to His ultimate overthrow of His foes. He declares that He will tread down all the enemies of His people, as grapes are trod in the winepress. The chapter, as you know, begins with that remarkable exclamation, "Who is this that comes from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah?" The Prophet, having beheld the glorious vision, and heard the proclamation of the victorious Hero, felt his soul stirred within him. It is usual for saints' hearts to burn within them when Christ is near. The glowing flames of his heart unloosed the bonds of his tongue—he could not but speak—and the theme which suggested itself to him was the loving kindness of the Lord. He was ravished with what he saw coming in the future, with the future triumphs of Emmanuel and the overthrow of Israel's foes, but he felt that he must not forget the glorious victories of the bygone ages and the triumphs of the days that were. And so with determination he declares, "I will mention the loving kindnesses of the Lord." There were some in the Prophets' days whose business it was to make mention of the Lord. Do you not remember how He says, "You that make mention of the Lord keep not silence?" Those were persons who publicly spoke of Him—"they that feared the Lord spoke often one to another." They were, also, persons who spoke to Him, who kept the Lord in remembrance and made mention of His mercies to them, as it is written—"You that make mention of the Lord keep not silence, and give Him no rest till He establishes and makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth." It was in both senses that Isaiah resolved to mention the loving kindnesses of Jehovah—to the people that they might love God—and to God that He might not forget His people, but might continue to smile upon them in the days to come, as He had done in days of yore.

I will mention the loving-kindnesses of the Lord - The prophet connects the preceding mercies of God to the Jews with the present prospect he has of their redemption by the Messiah; thus making a circle in which eternal goodness revolves. The remaining part of this chapter, with the whole chapter following, contains a penitential confession and supplication of the Israelites in their present state of dispersion, in which they have so long marvellously subsisted, and still continue to subsist, as a people; cast out of their country; without any proper form of civil polity or religious worship, their temple destroyed, their city desolated and lost to them, and their whole nation scattered over the face of the earth, apparently deserted and cast off by the God of their fathers, as no longer his peculiar people. They begin with acknowledging God’s great mercies and favors to their nation, and the ungrateful returns made to them on their part, that by their disobedience they had forfeited the protection of God, and had caused him to become their adversary. And now the prophet represents them, induced by the memory of the great things that God had done for them, as addressing their humble supplication for the renewal of his mercies. They beseech him to regard them in consideration of his former loving-kindness, they acknowledge him for their Father and Creator, they confess their wickedness and hardness of heart, they entreat his forgiveness, and deplore their present miserable condition under which they have so long suffered. It seems designed as a formulary of humiliation for the Israelites, in order to their conversion. The whole passage is in the elegiac form, pathetic and elegant; but it has suffered much in our present copy by the mistakes of transcribers. The praises of the Lord “The praise of Jehovah” - For תהלות tehilloth, plural, twenty-nine MSS. […]

I will mention - This is evidently the language of the people celebrating the praises of God in view of all his mercies in former days. See the analysis to the chapter. The design of what follows, to the close of Isa 64:1-12, is to implore the mercy of God in view of their depressed and ruined condition. They are represented as suffering under the infliction of long and continued ills; as cast out and driven to a distant land; as deprived of their former privileges, and as having been long subjected to great evils.