Isaiah Chapter 40 verse 21 Holy Bible
Have ye not known? have yet not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth?
read chapter 40 in ASV
Have you no knowledge of it? has it not come to your ears? has not news of it been given to you from the first? has it not been clear to you from the time when the earth was placed on its base?
read chapter 40 in BBE
-- Do ye not know? Have ye not heard? Hath it not been told you from the beginning? Have ye not understood the foundation of the earth?
read chapter 40 in DARBY
Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth?
read chapter 40 in KJV
read chapter 40 in WBT
Have you not known? have yet not heard? has it not been told you from the beginning? have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
read chapter 40 in WEB
Do ye not know -- do ye not hear? Hath it not been declared from the first to you? Have ye not understood `From' the foundations of the earth?
read chapter 40 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 21. - Have ye not known? Hitherto the prophet has restrained himself, and confined himself to quiet sarcasm. Now he bursts out. Is there any one so insensate, so devoid of natural reason and understanding, as not to know what has been known to all from the beginning - yea, from the foundations of the earth - by "the light that is in them," viz. that God is something wholly different from this? - that he is such a One as the prophet proceeds to describe in vers. 22-24, alike above nature and above man, Lord of heaven and earth, and absolute Disposer of the fates of all men? Hath it not been told you? If ye have not known the nature of God by the light of nature, has it not come down to you by tradition? Have not your fathers told it you? Has it not been handed on by sire to son from the very foundation of the earth? The appeal is to men generally, not especially to Israel. Have ye not understood, etc.? Some omit the preposition after "understood," and render the passage thus: "Have ye not understood the foundations of the earth?" i.e. how it was founded, or created - that its creation was God's sole act? (so the LXX., the Vulgate, Gesenius, Hitzig, Delitzsch, Knobel, Kay; but Ewald, Henderson, Weir, and Mr. Cheyne prefer the rendering of the Authorized Version).
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(21) Have ye not known? . . .--Strictly speaking, the first two verbs are potential futures: Can ye not know . . . We note that the prophet appeals to the primary intuitions of mankind, or, at least, to a primitive revelation, rather than to the commandments of the Decalogue. (Comp. Romans 1:20; Psalm 19:4.)