All nations. He repeats what he had said, that it is in the power and at the disposal of God to destroy "all nations," whenever he shall think proper; and that, even while they remain in their present condition, they are reckoned as nothing before him. But it may be thought absurd for him to say, that "the nations are nothing," since God created them, that they might be something. I reply, this is said by comparison; for the depravity of the human mind is such that it obscures the divine majesty, and places above it those things which ought to have been subject to God; and, therefore, when we come to that contest, we may boldly declare that everything that is compared with God is worthless. Nor does Isaiah speak merely about the nature of men, such as it was created by God; but his aim is to abase and restrain their pride, when they venture to exalt themselves against God. We know that we cannot subsist but in God, in whom alone, as Paul declares, "we live, and move, and are." (Acts 17:28.) Nothing is more vain than man; and, as David says, "If he be laid in the balance with vanity, he will be found to be even lighter than vanity." (Psalm 62:9.) In the same manner does Isaiah affirm that "the nations" are not only "nothing," but "less than nothing." in order to exhibit more fully their feebleness and vanity. [1]

Footnotes

1 - The ambiguous use of the word "vanity," and of the corresponding term in the Latin language, "vanitas," is avoided by our author's version; "and in comparison of him they are reckoned less than nothing, and what is not." -- Ed.

Are as nothing - This expresses literally what had been expressed by the beautiful and striking imagery above.
Less than nothing - A strong hyperbolic expression denoting the utter insignificance of the nations as compared with God. Such expressions are common in the Scriptures.
And vanity - Hebrew, תהו tôhû - 'Emptiness;' the word which in Genesis 1:2 is rendered 'without form.'

All nations before him [are] as (t) nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity.
(t) He speaks all this to the intent that they would neither fear man nor put their trust in any, save only in God.

All nations before him are as nothing,.... As if they were nonentities, and were not real beings in comparison of him, who is the Being of beings, the author of all beings which exist in all nations; who are all in his sight, and are not only as grasshoppers, as is after mentioned, but even as nothing:
and they are counted to him as less than nothing, and vanity; if there is or could be such a thing less than nothing, that they are; and so they are accounted of by him; they are like the chaos out of which the earth was formed, when it was "tohu" and "bohu", the first of which words is used here; this serves to humble the pride of men, and to lessen the glory of the nations, and the inhabitants of them.

(Psalm 62:9; Daniel 4:35).
less than nothing--MAURER translates, as in Isaiah 41:24, "of nothing" (partitively; or expressive of the nature of a thing), a mere nothing.
vanity--emptiness.

From the obverse of the thought in Isaiah 40:15 the prophet returns to the thought itself, and dwells upon it still further. "All the nations are as nothing before Him; they are regarded by Him as belonging to nullity and emptiness." 'Ephes is the end at which a thing ceases, and in an absolute sense that at which all being ceases, hence non-existence or nullity. Tōhū (from tâhâh, related to shâ'âh; vid., Comm. on Job, at Job 37:6), a horrible desolation, like the chaos of creation, where there is nothing definite, and therefore as good as nothing at all; min is hardly comparative in the sense of "more nothing than nothing itself" (Like Job 11:17, where "brighter" is to be supplied, or Micah 7:4, where "sharper" is similarly required), but is used in the same partitive sense as in Isaiah 41:24 (cf., Isaiah 44:11 and Psalm 62:10).