John Calvin Commentary Isaiah 48:11

"For mine own sake, for mine own sake, will I do it; for how should [my name] be profaned? and my glory will I not give to another." — Isaiah 48:11 (ASV)

For my own sake. He repeats the same statement which he had previously made, but adds a question, such as Hebrew writers are accustomed to use when they speak of what is absurd, “Is it possible that my name should be profaned?”

And I will not give my glory to another. This second clause is added for the purpose of exposition. Therefore, Isaiah, by multiplying the forms of expression, now adorns what he had previously expressed in a few words and elevates his style. Nor is it a mere explanation of the former statement, but rather an adornment to confirm it further.

By these words he means that men do everything in their power to “profane the name of God” and to convey “his glory to another,” but that the Lord, by his wonderful providence, counters this evil and causes his glory to remain undiminished. Therefore, although by our fault we abandon the glory of God, yet he will preserve it while he is our protector. From this we derive wonderful consolation: that God connects our salvation with his own glory, as we have already pointed out in other passages.

I will not give. That is, “I will not allow my glory to be taken from me.” This would have happened if the God of Israel had been mocked because of the ruin and destruction of the people. For wicked men, when the people of God were oppressed, used to taunt them with blasphemies of this sort: “Where is their God?” (Psalms 79:10). Moses also assigned a familiar reason why the Lord was unwilling to destroy the whole nation.

“Lest perhaps,” he says, “their enemies should claim it for themselves, and say, It is our lofty hand, and not the Lord, that hath done all this” (Deuteronomy 32:27). And indeed, when the Lord, by exhibiting signs of his anger, strikes terror into believers, no refuge remains but this: that he will remember his adoption, so that he does not expose his sacred name to the curses of wicked men.

Nor did the Prophet, by these words, merely exhort his people to gratitude, so that they might acknowledge that it was solely through the grace of God that they were preserved; but he also offered believers a basis for supplication and a shield with which they might resist despair.