Isaiah 8:17
And I will wait upon the LORD, that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him.
And I will wait upon the Lord,.... Or "for the Lord" {x}; for the coming of Christ, the Immanuel, who would be a sanctuary to some, and a stone of stumbling to others, and whose doctrine in the meanwhile would be bound up and sealed; faith in, and expectation of the Messiah's coming, are often signified by waiting for him,
that hideth his face from the house of Jacob; to whom the promise of him was made, from whom he should descend, to whom he should be sent, and whom he would redeem. This is not to be understood of his deserting of his people, and withdrawing his gracious presence from them, to show his displeasure at them, and resentment of their conduct, which is sometimes the sense of this phrase; but as descriptive of Christ before his assumption of human nature, when he was "Deus absconditus", the hidden God, as some render the words in
Isaiah 45:15 until he was manifest in the flesh; and which is therefore called his "appearing", 2 Timothy 1:10:
And I will look for him; the prophet here speaks in his own person, and in the person of the church who in that, and in succeeding ages, as well as before, were looking by faith for the coming of Christ, and redemption by him, Luke 2:38 though some understand this of Christ, expressing his satisfaction in the few disciples he had among the Jews, and determining to wait for the accomplishment of divine promises hereafter, when he should have a larger number; the Lord for the present hiding his face from the Jewish nation, and giving them to a spirit of judicial blindness; which sense well agrees with what goes before, and follows after.
{x} hwhyl ytykxw "praestolabor Dominum", Montanus; "expectabo Dominum", V. L.