Listen, islands, to me. Listen, you peoples, from afar: Yahweh has called me from the womb; from the inside of my mother, he has mentioned my name.
Parallel Translations
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Listen, islands, to me. Listen, you peoples, from afar: Yahweh has called me from the womb; from the inside of my mother, he has mentioned my name.
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Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far; The LORD hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name.
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Listen, O isles, unto me, and hearken, ye peoples, from far: the LORD hath called me from the womb, from the bowels of my mother hath He made mention of my name;
Examined in Scripture Analysis
Messianic Prophecies (1)
Passages read as foretelling the Messiah, with the fulfillment reading and the counter-reading set side by side.
Cross-references (27)
Passages linked to Isaiah 49:1 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I sanctified you. I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
- Galatians 1:15 But when it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through his grace
- Isaiah 44:2 This is what Yahweh who made you, and formed you from the womb, who will help you says: “Don’t be afraid, Jacob my servant; and you, Jeshurun, whom I have chosen.
- Isaiah 49:5 Now Yahweh, he who formed me from the womb to be his servant, says to bring Jacob again to him, and to gather Israel to him, for I am honorable in Yahweh’s eyes, and my God has become my strength.
- Luke 1:31 Behold, you will conceive in your womb and give birth to a son, and shall name him ‘Jesus.’
- Psalms 71:5-6 For you are my hope, Lord Yahweh, my confidence from my youth. I have relied on you from the womb. You are he who took me out of my mother’s womb. I will always praise you.
- Zephaniah 2:11 Yahweh will be awesome to them, for he will famish all the gods of the land. Men will worship him, everyone from his place, even all the shores of the nations.
- Matthew 1:20-21 But when he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, don’t be afraid to take to yourself Mary, your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She shall give birth to a son. You shall name him Jesus, for it is he who shall save his people from their sins.”
- Luke 2:10-11 The angel said to them, “Don’t be afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be to all the people. For there is born to you today, in David’s city, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
- 1 Peter 1:20 who was foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world, but was revealed in this last age for your sake,
- Isaiah 46:3 “Listen to me, house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, that have been carried from their birth, that have been carried from the womb.
- Isaiah 57:19 I create the fruit of the lips: Peace, peace, to him who is far off and to him who is near,” says Yahweh; “and I will heal them.”
- Isaiah 60:9 Surely the islands will wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring your sons from far, their silver and their gold with them, for the name of Yahweh your God, and for the Holy One of Israel, because he has glorified you.
- John 10:36 do you say of him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You blaspheme,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God?’
- Hebrews 12:25 See that you don’t refuse him who speaks. For if they didn’t escape when they refused him who warned on the earth, how much more will we not escape who turn away from him who warns from heaven,
- Isaiah 9:6 For a child is born to us. A son is given to us; and the government will be on his shoulders. His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
- Isaiah 42:1-4 “Behold, my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights: I have put my Spirit on him. He will bring justice to the nations. He will not shout, nor raise his voice, nor cause it to be heard in the street. He won’t break a bruised reed. He won’t quench a dimly burning wick. He will faithfully bring justice. He will not fail nor be discouraged, until he has set justice in the earth, and the islands wait for his law.”
- Isaiah 44:24 Yahweh, your Redeemer, and he who formed you from the womb says: “I am Yahweh, who makes all things; who alone stretches out the heavens; who spreads out the earth by myself;
- Isaiah 55:3 Turn your ear, and come to me. Hear, and your soul will live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.
- Luke 1:15 For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and he will drink no wine nor strong drink. He will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb.
- Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin will conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
- Isaiah 41:1 “Keep silent before me, islands, and let the peoples renew their strength. Let them come near, then let them speak. Let’s meet together for judgment.
- Isaiah 42:12 Let them give glory to Yahweh, and declare his praise in the islands.
- Isaiah 45:22 “Look to me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other.
- Isaiah 51:5 My righteousness is near. My salvation has gone out, and my arms will judge the peoples. The islands will wait for me, and they will trust my arm.
- Isaiah 66:19 “I will set a sign among them, and I will send those who escape of them to the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, who draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to far-away islands, who have not heard my fame, nor have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the nations.
- Ephesians 2:17 He came and preached peace to you who were far off and to those who were near.
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Explain this verse (24 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain This is spoken in the person of Christ, to…
This is spoken in the person of Christ, to assure the faithful that these promises should come to pass: for they were all made in him, and in him should be performed.
This is meant of the time that Christ should be manifested to the world, as Ps. 2:7.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Isa 49:1 Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken,…
Isa 49:1 Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far; The LORD hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name.
Ver. 1. Listen, O isles, unto me,] i.e., Ye foreigners; for wicked Israel will not, and therefore have no true peace. {Isa 48:22 Psa 119:165}
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Unto me.] Understand it of Isaiah, but especially of Christ: for from hence to the end of this book, as the Jewish doctors also acknowledge, are visions and sermons set down concerning Christ’s twofold kingdom, viz., of patience and of power. See Act 13:47 2Co 6:1-18 : 2Ki 7:10.
The Lord hath called me from the womb.] Called me and qualified me, appointed and anointed me to the office of a mediator. Thus those that attend not, though never so remote, are deeply guilty before God. {Deu 18:18-19 Act 3:22-23}
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Listen, O isles. God having in the last words…
Listen, O isles. God having in the last words secretly signified the wickedness of the Jewish nation, after so glorious a deliverance, and foreseeing that, for their wickedness, he should cast them off, he here turneth his speech to the nations of the Gentiles, who are frequently described in this prophecy and elsewhere under the title of isles, as hath been formerly noted, and inviteth them to hearken to those counsels and doctrines which the Jews would reject.
Unto me; unto Christ; for it is apparent from Isa 49:6, and other passages of this chapter, that Isaiah speaks these words ill the name of Christ, by whose Spirit they were dictated to him, 1Pe 1:11, and unto whom alone they belong, as we shall see. So this chapter is a prophecy of Christ, which also is very proper and seasonable in this place. The prophet having at large prophesied of the deliverance of the Jews out of Babylon, he now proceeds further, and prophesieth of the redemption of the world by Christ, of which that deliverance out of Babylon was a type and forerunner.
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Hearken, ye people, from far; which live in countries far from Judea, now the only place of God’s special presence and worship. It is evident from the foregoing clause, and many other passages following, that he speaks of distance of place, not of time.
The Lord hath called me from the womb: this or the like expression is used of Jeremiah, Isa 1:5, and of Paul, Gal 1:15; but it was far more eminently true of Christ, who, as he was chosen to this great office of redemption from eternity, so he was separated and called to it before he was born, being both conceived and sanctified by the Holy Ghost in his mother’s womb, and sent into the world upon this errand; of which see Mat 1:21; Luk 1:31, &c.; it. 11, &c.
Made mention of my name; called by my name, and by such a name as signified my office and work, in the places now mentioned.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain Here, I. An auditory is summoned together and attention…
Here, I. An auditory is summoned together and attention demanded. The sermon in the foregoing chapter was directed to the house of Jacob and the people of Israel, Isa 49:1, Isa 49:12. But this is directed to the isles (that is, the Gentiles, for they are called the isles of the Gentiles, Gen 10:5) and to the people from far, that were strangers to the commonwealth of Israel, and afar off. Let these listen (Isa 49:1) as to a thing at a distance, which yet they are to hear with desire and attention. Note, 1. The tidings of a Redeemer are sent to the Gentiles, and to those that lie most remote; and they are concerned to listen to them. 2. The Gentiles listened to the gospel when the Jews were deaf to it.
II. The great author and publisher of the redemption produces his authority from heaven for the work he had undertaken. 1. God had appointed him and set him apart for it: The Lord has called me from the womb to this office and made mention of my name, nominated me to be the Saviour. By an angel he called him Jesus - a Saviour, who should save his people from their sins, Mat 1:21. Nay, from the womb of the divine counsels, before all worlds, he was called to this service, and help was laid upon him; and he came at the call, for he said, Lo, I come, with an eye to what was written of him in the volume of the book. This was said of some of the prophets, as types of him, Jer 1:5. Paul was separated to the apostleship from his mother's womb, Gal 1:15. 2. God had fitted and qualified him for the service to which he designed him. He made his mouth like a sharp sword, and made him like a polished shaft, or a bright arrow, furnished him with every thing necessary to fight God's battles against the powers of darkness, to conquer Satan, and bring back God's revolted subjects to their allegiance, by his word: that is the two-edged sword (Heb 4:12) which comes out of his mouth, Rev 19:15. The convictions of the word are the arrows that shall be sharp in the hearts of sinners, Psa 45:5. 3. God had preferred him to the service for which he had reserved him: He has hidden me in the shadow of his hand and in his quiver, which denotes, (1.) Concealment. The gospel of Christ, and the calling in of the Gentiles by it, were long hidden from ages and generations, hidden in God (Eph 3:5, Rom 16:25), hidden in the shadow of the ceremonial law and the Old Testament types. (2.) Protection. The house of David was the particular care of the divine Providence, because that blessing was in it. Christ in his infancy was sheltered from the rage of Herod. 4. God had owned him, had said unto him, "Thou art my servant, whom I have employed and will prosper; thou art Israel, in effect, the prince with God, that hast wrestled and prevailed; and in thee I will be glorified." The people of God are Israel, and they are all gathered together, summed up, as it were, in Christ, the great representative of all Israel, as the high priest who had the names of all the tribes on his breastplate; and in him God is and will be glorified; so he said by a voice from heaven, Joh 12:27, Joh 12:28. Some read the words in two clauses: Thou art my servant (so Christ is, Isa 42:1); it is Israel in whom I will be glorified by thee; it is the spiritual Israel, the elect, in the salvation of whom by Jesus Christ God will be glorified, and his free grace for ever admired.
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III. He is assured of the good success of his undertaking; for whom God calls he will prosper. And as to this,
1. He objects the discouragement he had met with at his first setting out (Isa 49:4): "Then I said, with a sad heart, I have laboured in vain; those that were ignorant, and careless, and strangers to God, are so still: I have called, and they have refused; I have stretched out my hands to a gainsaying people." This was Isaiah's complaint, but it was no more than he was told to expect, Isa 6:9. The same was a temptation to Jeremiah to resolve he would labour no more, Jer 20:9. It is the complaint of many a faithful minister, that has not loitered, but laboured, not spared, but spent, his strength, and himself with it, and yet, as to many, it is all in vain and for nought; they will not be prevailed with to repent and believe. But here it seems to point at the obstinacy of the Jews, among whom Christ went in person preaching the gospel of the kingdom, laboured and spent his strength, and yet the rulers and the body of the nation rejected him and his doctrine; so very few were brought in, when one would think none should have stood out, that he might well say, "I have laboured in vain, preached so many sermons, wrought so many miracles, in vain." Let not the ministers think it strange that they are slighted when the Master himself was.
2. He comforts himself under this discouragement with this consideration, that it was the cause of God in which he was engaged and the call of God that engaged him in it: Yet surely my judgment is with the Lord, who is the Judge of all, and my work with my God, whose servant I am. His comfort is, and it may be the comfort of all faithful ministers, when they see little success of their labours, (1.) That, however it be, it is a righteous cause that they are pleading. They are with God, and for God; they are on his side, and workers together with him. They like not their judgment, the rule they go by, nor their work, the business they are employed in, ever the worse for this. The unbelief of men gives them no cause to suspect the truth of their doctrine, Rom 3:3. (2.) That their management of this cause, and their prosecution of this work, were known to God, and they could appeal to him concerning their sincerity, and that it was not through any neglect of theirs that they laboured in vain. "He knows the way that I take; my judgment is with the Lord, to determine whether I have not delivered my soul and left the blood of those that perish on their own heads." (3.) Though the labour be in vain as to those that are laboured with, yet not as to the labourer himself, if he be faithful: his judgment is with the Lord, who will justify him and bear him out, though men condemn him and run him down; and his work (the reward of his work) is with his God, who will take care he shall be no loser, no, not by his lost labour. (4.) Though the judgment be not yet brought forth unto victory, nor the work to perfection, yet both are with the Lord, to carry them on and give them success, according to his purpose, in his own way and time.
3. He receives from God a further answer to this objection, Isa 49:5, Isa 49:6. He knew very well that God had set him on work, had formed him from the womb to be his servant, had not only called him so early to it (Isa 49:1), but begun so early to fit him for it and dispose him to it. Those whom God designs to employ as his servants he is fashioning and preparing to be so long before, when perhaps neither themselves nor others are aware of it. It is he that forms the spirit of man within him. Christ was to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, that had treacherously departed from him. The seed of Jacob therefore, according to the flesh, must first be dealt with, and means used to bring them back. Christ, and the word of salvation by him, are sent to them first; nay, Christ comes in person to them only, to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But what if Jacob will not be brought back to God and Israel will not be gathered? So it proved; but this is a satisfaction in that case, (1.) Christ will be glorious in the eyes of the Lord; and those are truly glorious that are so in God's eyes. Though few of the Jewish nation were converted by Christ's preaching and miracles, and many of them loaded him with ignominy and disgrace, yet God put honour upon him, and made him glorious, at his baptism, and in his transfiguration, spoke to him from heaven, sent angels to minister to him, made even his shameful death glorious by the many prodigies that attended it, much more his resurrection. In his sufferings God was his strength, so that though he met with all the discouragement imaginable, by the contempts of a people whom he had done so much to oblige, yet he did not fail nor was discouraged. An angel was sent from heaven to strengthen him, Luk 22:43. Faithful ministers, though they see not the fruit of their labours, shall yet be accepted of God, and in that they shall be truly glorious, for his favour is our honour; and they shall be assisted to proceed and persevere in their labours notwithstanding. This weakens their hands, but their God will be their strength. (2.) The gospel shall be glorious in the eyes of the world; though it be not so in the eyes of the Jews, yet it shall be entertained by the nations, Isa 49:6. The Messiah seemed as if he had been primarily designed to bring Jacob back, Isa 49:5. But he is here told that it is comparatively but a small matter; a higher orb of honour than that, and a larger sphere of usefulness, are designed him: "It is a light thing that thou shouldst be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob to the dignity and dominion they expect by the Messiah, and to restore the preserved of Israel, and make them a flourishing church and state as formerly" (nay, considering what a little handful of people they are, it would be but a small matter, in comparison, for the Messiah to be the Saviour of them only); "and therefore I will give thee for a light to the Gentiles (many great and mighty nations by the gospel of Christ shall be brought to the knowledge and worship of the true God), that thou mayest be my salvation, the author of that salvation which I have designed for lost man, and this to the end of the earth, to nations at the greatest distance." Hence Simeon learned to call Christ a light to lighten the Gentiles (Luk 2:32), and St. Paul's exposition of this text is what we ought to abide by, and it serves for a key to the context, Act 13:47. Therefore, says he, we turn to the Gentiles, to preach the gospel to them, because so has the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light to the Gentiles. In this the Redeemer was truly glorious, though Israel was not gathered; the setting up of his kingdom in the Gentile world was more his honour than if he had raised up all the tribes of Jacob. This promise is in part fulfilled already, and will have a further accomplishment, if that time be yet to come which the apostle speaks of, when the fulness of the Gentiles shall be brought in. Observe, God calls it his salvation, which some think intimates how well pleased he was with it, how he gloried in it, and (if I may so say) how much his heart was upon it. They further observe that Christ is given for a light to all those to whom he is given for salvation. It is in darkness that men perish. Christ enlightens men's eyes, and so makes them holy and happy.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Listen, O isles, unto me,.... These are not the…
Listen, O isles, unto me,.... These are not the words of Cyrus, as Lyra mentions; nor of the Prophet Isaiah, as Aben Ezra, Kimchi, and other Jewish writers think; but of Christ, calling upon the inhabitants of the isles to hearken to him; by whom are meant the inhabitants of islands properly so called, as ours of Great Britain, and may be chiefly designed, being a place where the Gospel of Christ came early, and has been long; or all such that dwell in countries beyond the sea, it being usual with the Jews to call all such countries isles that were beyond sea to them; Christ is the great Prophet of his church, and is alone to be hearkened unto, and in all things, Mat 17:5,
and hearken, ye people, from far; that were afar off from the land of Judea, as well as afar off from God and Christ, and the knowledge of him, and of righteousness and salvation by him; the Gentile nations are meant; see Eph 2:12, for this is to be understood of kingdoms afar off, as the Targum paraphrases it; and not of distant and future things, to be accomplished hereafter, as Aben Ezra; taking this to be the subject they are required to hearken to, and not as descriptive of persons that are to hearken:
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the Lord hath called me from the womb; to the office of a Mediator; to be Prophet, Priest, and King; to be the Saviour and Redeemer of men; he did not assume this to himself, but was called of God his Father, Heb 5:4, and that not only from the womb of his mother Mary, or as soon as he was conceived and born of her; but from the womb of eternity, from the womb of eternal purposes and decrees; for he was set forth, or foreordained in the purposes of God, to be the propitiation for sin; and was predestinated to be the Redeemer before the foundation of the world, even before he had a being in this world as man. So the Targum,
"the Lord, before I was, appointed me;''
he prepared a body for him, and appointed him to be his salvation. The Syriac version join, the words "from far" to this clause, as do the Septuagint and Arabic versions, contrary to the accents, and renders them, "of a long time the Lord hath called me, from the womb"; even from eternity:
from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name; Jarchi interprets this of Isaiah, whose name was fixed and given him by the Lord, while he was in his mother's bowels, signifying that he should prophesy of salvation and comfort; but it is much better to understand it of Christ, whose name Jesus, a Saviour, was made mention of by the Lord, while he was in his mother's womb, and before he was born, Mat 1:20, for the words may be rendered, "before the womb, and before the bowels of my mother" (r); that is, before he was in them.
(r) "ante uterum----ante viscera matris meae", h. e. "antequam essem in utero, et in visceribus matris meae", Vitringa.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Christ, being sent to the Jews complains of them,…
Christ, being sent to the Jews complains of them, ver. 1-4. He is sent to the Gentiles with gracious promises, ver. 5-12. God's love to his church perpetual, ver. 13-17. The ample restoration of the church, and its enlargement, ver. 18-23. Its powerful deliverance out of captivity, ver. 24-26.
Listen - God turns his speech to the Gentiles, and invites them to hearken to those counsels and doctrines which the Jews would reject. Me - Unto Christ: Isaiah speaks these words in the name of Christ.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain In this chapter the Messiah is introduced, declaring the…
CHAPTER XLIX
In this chapter the Messiah is introduced, declaring the full
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extent of his commission, which is not only to be Saviour to
the Jews, but also to the Gentiles. The power and efficacy of
his word is reprehended by apt images; the ill success of his
ministry among the Jews is intimated, and the great success of
the Gospel among the Gentiles, 1-12.
But the prophet, then casting his eye on the happy, though
distant, period of Israel's restoration, makes a beautiful
apostrophe to the whole creation to shout forth the praises of
God on the prospect of this remarkable favour, 13.
The tender mercies of God to his people, with the prosperity of
the Church in general, and the final overthrow of all its
enemies, make the subject of the remaining verses, 14-26.
NOTES ON CHAP. XLIX
Verse 1. Listen, O isles, unto me - "Hearken unto me, O ye distant lands"] Hitherto the subject of the prophecy has been chiefly confined to the redemption from the captivity of Babylon; with strong intimations of a more important deliverance sometimes thrown in, to the refutation of idolatry, and the demonstration of the infinite power, wisdom, and foreknowledge of God. The character and office of the Messiah was exhibited in general terms at the beginning of Isa 42:1 c. but here he is introduced in person, declaring the full extent of his commission, which is not only to restore the Israelites, and reconcile them to their Lord and Father, from whom they had so often revolted, but to be a light to lighten the Gentiles, to call them to the knowledge and obedience of the true God, and to bring them to be one Church together with the Israelites, and to partake with them of the same common salvation procured for all by the great Redeemer and Reconciler of man to God.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Isa 49:1. Listen, O isles, &c. — “Hitherto the…
Isa 49:1. Listen, O isles, &c. — “Hitherto the subject of the prophecy has been chiefly confined to the redemption from the captivity of Babylon, with strong intimations of a more important deliverance sometimes thrown in; to the refutation of idolatry, and the demonstration of the infinite power, wisdom, and foreknowledge of God. The character and office of the Messiah were exhibited in general terms, at the beginning of chap. 42., but here he is introduced in person, declaring the full extent of his commission; which is not only to restore the Israelites, and reconcile them to their Lord and Father, from whom they had so often revolted, but to be a light to lighten the Gentiles, to call them to the knowledge and obedience of the true God, and to bring them to be one church, together with the Israelites, and to partake with them of the same common salvation procured for all, by the great Redeemer and Reconciler of man to God.” — Bishop Lowth. By the isles here, and the people from far, the Gentiles are meant, who are frequently addressed by the appellation of isles, and who, in general, lived in countries far remote from Judea, now the only place of God’s special presence and worship. The person who addresses them is the Messiah, as evidently appears from Isa 49:6, and several other passages of this chapter. If the character here exhibited can, in any sense, as some think it may, belong to the prophet, “yet, in some parts,” as Bishop Lowth justly observes, “it must belong exclusively to Christ; and in all parts to him in a much fuller and more proper sense.” God having, in the last words of the preceding chapter, intimated by his prophet, that many of the Jews, notwithstanding the glorious deliverance from Babylon vouchsafed them, would be wicked, and foreknowing that he would cast them off for their wickedness, the Messiah here addresses his speech to the Gentiles, and invites them to hearken to those counsels and doctrines which he foresaw the Jews would reject. The Lord hath called me from the womb — This, or the like expression, is used of Jer 1:5, and of Paul, Gal 1:15; but it was far more eminently true of Christ, who, as he was chosen to this great office of redemption from eternity, so he was separated and called to it before he was born, being both conceived and sanctified by the Holy Ghost in his mother’s womb, and sent into the world upon this errand.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Listen - This is the exordium, or introduction. According…
Listen - This is the exordium, or introduction. According to the interpretation which refers it to the Messiah, it is to be regarded as the voice of the Redeemer calling the distant parts of the earth to give a respectful attention to the statement of his qualifications for his work, and to the assurances that his salvation would be extended to them (compare Isa 41:1). The Redeemer here is to be regarded as having already come in the flesh, and as having been rejected and despised by the Jews (see Isa 49:4-5), and as now turning to the Gentile world, and proffering salvation to them. The time when this is supposed to occur, therefore, as seen by the prophet, is when the Messiah had preached in vain to his own countrymen, and when there was a manifest fitness and propriety in his extending the offer of salvation to the pagan world.
O isles - Ye distant lands (see the note at Isa 41:1). The word is used here, as it is there, in the sense of countries beyond sea; distant, unknown regions; the dark, pagan world.
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Ye people from far - The reason why the Messiah thus addresses them is stated in Isa 49:6. It is because he was appointed to be a light to them, and because, having been rejected by the Jewish nation, it was resolved to extend the offers and the blessings of salvation to other lands.
The Lord hath called me from the womb - Yahweh hath set me apart to this office from my very birth. The stress here is laid on the fact that he was thus called, and not on the particular time when it was done. The idea is, that he had not presumptuously assumed this office; he had not entered on it without being appointed to it; he had been designated to it even before he was born (see Isa 49:5). A similar expression is used in respect to Jeremiah Jer 1:5 : ‘Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee; and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.’ Paul also uses a similar expression respecting himself Gal 1:15 : ‘But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb.’ That this actually occurred in regard to the Redeemer, it is not needful to pause here to show (see Luk 1:31).
From the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name - This is another form of stating the fact that he had been designated to this office from his very infancy. Many have supposed that the reference here is to the fact that Mary was commanded by the angel, before his birth, to call his name Jesus Luk 1:31. The same command was also repeated to Joseph in a dream Mat 1:21. So Jerome, Vitringa, Michaelis, and some others understand it. By others it has been supposed that the phrase ‘he hath made mention of my name is the same as to call. The Hebrew is literally, ‘He has caused my name to be remembered from the bowels of my mother.’ The Septuagint renders it, ‘He hath called my name.’ Grotius renders it, ‘He has given to me a beautiful name, by which salvation is signified as about to come from the Lord.’ I see no objection to the supposition that this refers to the fact that his name was actually designated before he was born. The phrase seems obviously to imply more than merely to call to an office; and as his name was thus actually designated by God, and as he designed that there should be special significancy and applicability in the name, there can be no impropriety in supposing that this refers to that fact. If so, the idea is, that he was not only appointed to the work of the Messiah from his birth, but that he actually had a name given him by God before he was born, which expressed the fact that he would save people, and which constituted a reason why the distant pagan lands should hearken to his voice.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Give. This fresh discourse continues to chap. lvi. 9.,…
Give. This fresh discourse continues to chap. lvi. 9., relating to the Messias, who is introduced speaking to all the world, Acts xiii. 47., and 2 Corinthians vi. 2. Some apply a part to Cyrus, Isaias, or John the Baptist, as to his figures. (Calmet) --- The prophet has foretold the conversion of the Gentiles, as he now does, like an evangelist. (St. Jerome) --- Many Jews will embrace the gospel at the end of time. (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain Parallel between the Servant of God and Zion
I.—THE FIRST DISCOURSE
Parallel between the Servant of God and Zion
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Isaiah 49
In a sketchy way the Prophet draws a picture of the similar course of development in the case of the Servant of God and that of Israel, which, in consequence of its rejecting the Servant, is repudiated unto the extremest misery, yet shall arise again to the full glory of the church of God. The Servant of God begins His course as a little child in the body of his mother, but Israel, as a repudiated wife, must begin an entirely new course of life. Both come also to the most glorious goal. The chapter has accordingly two parts; the first comprising Isa_49:1-13, the second Isa_49:14-26.
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1. TOTAL SURVEY OF THE PERSON AND WORK OF THE SERVANT OF GOD
Isa_49:1-13
1 Listen, O isles, unto me;
And hearken, ye people, from far;
The Lord hath called me from the womb;
From the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name.
2 And he hath made my mouth like a sharp sword;
In the shadow of his hand hath he hid me,
And made me a polished shaft;
In his quiver hath he hid me;
3 And said unto me, Thou art my servant,
O Israel, in whom I will be glorified.
4 Then I said, I have laboured in vain,
I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain:
Yet surely my judgment is with the Lord,
And 1my work with my God.
5 And now, saith the Lord
That formed me from the womb to be his servant,
To bring Jacob again to him,
2Though Israel be not gathered,
Yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord,
And my God shall be my strength.
6 And he said, 3It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant
To raise up the tribes of Jacob,
And to restore the 4preserved of Israel:
5I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles,
That thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.
7 Thus saith the Lord,
The Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One;
6To him whom man despiseth, to him whom the nation abhorreth,
To a servant of rulers,
Kings shall see and arise,
Princes also shall worship,
Because of the Lord that is faithful,
And the Holy One of Israel, and he7 shall choose thee.
8 Thus saith the Lord,
In an acceptable time have I heard thee,
And in a day of salvation have I helped thee:
And I will preserve thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people,
To 8establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages;
9 That thou mayest say to the prisoners, Go forth;
To them that are in darkness, Show yourselves.
They shall feed in the ways,
And their pastures shall be in all high places.
10 They shall not hunger nor thirst;
Neither shall the 9heat nor sun smite them:
For he that hath mercy on them shall lead them,
Even by the springs of water shall he guide them.
11 And I will make all my mountains a way,
And my highways shall be exalted.
12 Behold these shall come from far:
And, lo, these from the north and from the west;
And these from the land of Sinim.
13 Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth;
And break forth into singing, O mountains:
For the Lord hath comforted his people,
And will have mercy upon his afflicted.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
See List for the recurrence of the words: Isa_49:1. מִבֶּטֶן. Isa_49:4. הֶבֶל ,לחהו והבל comp. Isa_30:7; Job_9:29.—פעלה. Isa_49:5. עו–שׁוּב, Isa_12:2; Psa_28:7. Isa_49:7. קְדוֹשׁוֹ יִשְׂרָאֵל גֹאֵל—בְּזה.
Isa_49:1. מֵרָחוֹק can be dependent on הקשׁיבו, but just as well on לאמים (comp. Isa_5:26; Isa_22:3; Isa_23:7; Isa_57:9) according to familiar usage.
Isa_49:5. Instead of לא before יאסף, the K’ri reads לוֹ. The same is the case in ten other passages: Exo_21:8; Lev_11:21; Lev_25:30; 2Sa_16:8; 2Sa_19:7; Isa_9:2; Isa_63:9; Job_6:21; Job_13:15; Job_41:4. In only one passage. K’ri reads לֹא, while K’thibh has לוֹ: 1Sa_20:2. In two passages K’thibh reads לֹא, but K’ri וְלֹא: Lam_2:2; Lam_5:5. As regards our text, the LXX. translates, and after it the Vetus Latinus, “congregabor et glorificabor coram Domino,” from which one sees that they read אֵאָסֵף וְאֶבָּבֵד; thus, probably, they drew the first letter of the word לא to the foregoing ישׂואל, and the second to the following יאסף, or substituted it for the י. Jerome is very much discontented with this translation, which Symmachus and Theodotion also have, because it surrenders a fortissimum contra judaeorum perfidiam testimonium. Aquila translates: “et Israel ei congregabitur.” Therefore he read לוֹ. It seems therefore that party stand-point had an influence on the reading. Among moderns Hitzig translates “in that he leads Jacob back to himself, and Israel will not be carried off.” Hofmann: “Israel that will not be carried away.” B. Fr. Oehler: “And that Israel be not carried away.” All these take אסף in the sense of “to carry away.” Though I will not deny that it may be taken so, yet this negative thought partly disturbs the sense, partly it is flat and superfluous. It suits the parallelism much better to construe the clause as a positive statement. Then the finite verb stands instead of the infinitive with לְ according to the grammatical usage that demands the speedy return from the subordinate forms to the chief forms. לְ for אֶל or עַל is not suspicious, as Hitzig supposes. For beside לו יאסף being quite as admissible as בָּאוּ לָךְ Isa_49:18, it is quite common for a preposition to be superseded by a kindred one in the second clause (comp. Jer_3:17; Psa_33:18).—The clause ואכבד as far as עזי is a parenthesis. The latter part of it is in the perfect וְהָיָה, because, according to Hebrew grammar, two future things are not as such made to follow one another in like verbal form, but only the first stands in the future, while the second is expressed by the perfect as being directly present viewed from the standpoint of the future. Therefore here: I will be honored and then is (as immediate consequence) my God my strength.
Isa_49:6. מִן before היותך is properly superfluous, or rather it ought to stand before the member that utters the intenser notion: considered from this, that I will make thee a light to the heathen, it is a small thing that thou art my servant to raise up the tribes of Israel. But מִן stands here to intimate generally a comparative relation, and, as Delitzsch also observes, one may not press the matter of its position. In Eze_8:17 also, the only other place where נָקֵל occurs impersonally with מִן (comp. 2Sa_6:22), this preposition does not stand in the logically correct place. Probably there hovered before the Prophet the thought נָקֵל מִמְּךָ הֱיוֹתְךָ לִי וגו׳ i.e., it is from thee, from thy standpoint or in comparison with thy claims, a small thing that thou art my servant to raise up Israel, I will make thee a light to the heathen. That מִמְּךָ הֱיוֹתְךָ would accordingly be contracted into מִהְיוֹתְךָ.—In placing the infin. לְהָשִׁיב after, there is a certain poetic effect: the two infinitive clauses form a whole with corresponding beginning and end. Comp. Isa_44:10; Psa_6:10.
Isa_49:7. In בְּזה־נֶפֶשׁ the בזה is simple infinitive, which is however to be construed here as abstractum pro concrete. נפשׁ is not to be conceived of as in the accusative (of nearer definition), but as standing in the genitive. For it is not the soul of the Servant that is meant, but the soul of the despiser. For not merely outwardly, with words, but truly, inwardly, with their whole soul. He is to them an object of contempt (comp. שְׂחֹק Job_12:4; מְשֹׁל Job_17:6.—In regard to the order יראו וקמו comp. the remarks on the parenthesis in Isa_49:5. It is to be noted that it does not read וְהִשְׁתַּחֲווּ שָׂרִים. For the ו after שׂרים does not stand parallel with the וְ before קָמוּ, and moreover יראו is not to be supplied before it, but the וְ after שׂרים has demonstrative force=princes, they shall worship him (comp. Ewald, § 344, b; Gen_22:4; Gen_22:24; Exo_16:6-7, etc.).—The וְ before יבחרך is to be taken in the same way. It stands demonstratively, corresponding to the אשׁר before נאמן, and rhetorically substituted for it for the sake of variety. We could say not more correctly, yet more intelligibly and by a really more common construction: for Jehovah’s sake who is faithful, for the sake of the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen thee.
Isa_49:9. To take לֵאמֹר gerundively (Delitzsch) is not impossible, but it is also not necessary. For what follows is the specification of what precedes, as now there is said after, what all must previously happen to make possible that הקים ארץ and הנחיל. Yet לאמר is here more than a mere sign of quotation. It denotes an actual, audible speaking, without which the captives would not be able to hear the summons.—יַכֵּם zeugma, comp. Psa_121:6.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. The one who forms the chief person of the second Ennead, the personal Servant of Jehovah, is also the first that enters here as speaker. What He says and hears affords us a panoramic image of His life and labor from their first mysterious beginning to the remotest glorious end. As the Servant of God begins by summoning all lands of the earth to give heed, He lets it be understood that what is now to be heard concerns all (Isa_49:1 a). Then He designates Himself as one called from His mother’s womb (Isa_49:1 b), and as an instrument equipped for a successful contest (Isa_49:2), to whom Jehovah has given the honorable name “Servant of God” and “Israel,” and by whom He has determined to glorify Himself (Isa_49:3). The present out of which the Servant of God speaks does not correspond to these gracious declarations. For He is constrained to say: I have labored and suffered in vain (Isa_49:4 a). But He instantly consoles Himself again with the thought that His right and His reward are in the hands of God, thus in good hands (Isa_49:4 b). And then Jehovah Himself confirms this ground of comfort by a threefold declaration: 1) that the work of His chosen Servant, so far from being unsuccessful, will attain a much higher end than what was originally determined. That is, He shall not only bring back the people of Israel to its God, but also bring light and salvation to all nations (Isa_49:5-6). 2) The Servant of God, become an object of contempt and aversion, shall become an object of the highest veneration even for kings (Isa_49:7). 3) The Servant of God, to a certain time seemingly repudiated, shall yet, when the time for it arrives, be raised aloft and made the mediator of a new Covenant, in consequence of which the Holy Land shall be restored and newly divided, the people redeemed and brought home under divine protection and support from all nations and regions of the world (Isa_49:8-12). On account of this glorious redemption, heaven and earth are summoned to praise God (Isa_49:13).
2. Listen, O isles——with my God.
Isa_49:1-4. Islands and nations are here in parallelism, as in Isa_41:1. As what follows concerns all, we have here a discourse of universal importance (comp. Isa_1:2; Isa_34:1). This introduction quite corresponds to the statement of Isa_49:6, that the Servant of God shall be the light of the heathen and salvation of God to the end of the earth. But who is here the Servant of God? At first sight the Prophet himself seems to speak in Isa_49:1-2, declaring his call from his mother’s womb (comp. Jer_1:5), his equipment for the prophetic calling and the protection experienced in its exercise. But instantly Isa_49:3 contradicts this. For it is incomprehensible how the Prophet alone can be called Israel. Added to this the Prophet certainly cannot say that the Lord has made him a light to the Gentiles, etc. (Isa_49:6). As little can it be said of him that kings shall worship him (Isa_49:7), or that he is set for a covenant of the people (Isa_49:8).—The designation of the one addressed as “Israel” in Isa_49:3 suggests the thought that Israel is meant, either as a nation or as the nucleus of the nation (the spiritual Israel). But Isa_49:5-6, Conflict with this, where both Israel in general and also the nucleus of Israel are expressly distinguished from the Servant of God (see below). But how can one say with Oehler (D. Knecht Jehovah’s, p. 87): “the nation as an ideal Israel leads back the people in their empirical manifestion?” Where is it ever said in any sense whatever that the nation led itself back? And was then the ideal Israel, that would yet be the one to lead back, only among the returned? And did not those that remained in the Exile also belong to empirical Israel?—By the Servant of Jehovah in our text I can only understand the personal Servant. He constitutes in the whole second Ennead the principal person. What was said of Him in the first Ennead by way of prelude now comes to its full development. The Servant of Jehovah is also a man who lay in the womb of his mother. The Prophet portrays his life ab ovo. It is perhaps not superfluous to remark that while the Prophet says of the people of Israel, God chose, formed, brought on, kept, bore them from the womb on (מִבֶּטֶן, Isa_44:2; Isa_44:24; Isa_46:3; Isa_41:8-10), of the personal Servant, he formed and called him from the womb (Isa_49:1; Isa_49:5), he says of Cyrus, only, he called him by his name and brought him on (Isa_45:1; Isa_45:3-4). From this it is seen that the Servant of Jehovah in both senses stands nearer Jehovah than does Cyrus. For in the two first named the Lord claims a certain paternity. But Israel gives him most care. It must also be kept, borne and supported. The personal Servant does not need this help. He is merely formed, then called. Cyrus, however, appears as originating from a region that lies more remote from the Lord. From that he is called up by his name (and in fact by שֵׁם and כֻּנְיָה, Isa_45:4).
It is even self-evident that מבטן קראני does not mean: he has called me out of my mother’s womb (Hahn). For thus understood the expression suggests absurd ideas. But it were quite in place to say, that the personal Servant of Jehovah was also an instrument formed ad hoc, and led as it were by the voice of God from birth on. The parallel expression הִזְכִּיר שְׁמִי means “to make memory, remembrance of the name.” It is used of places of worship intended for calling on the divine name (Exo_20:21); of a monument intended to perpetuate a name (2Sa_18:18); of a tribute of praise meant to keep the memory of a name for all times (Ps. 45:18; Isa_26:13). On הַזְכִּיר בְּשֵׁם, comp. Isa_48:1. Here, where the expression is parallel with קָרָא, which, however, can happen only by means of the name, it seems to designate a more enduring keeping of the name in mind: the Lord has not only called me once, He has also afterwards continually thought of my name; He has never lost sight of me from the bowels of my mother (comp. מֵרָֽחַם, Isa_46:3).
Next the life of the Servant of Jehovah is sketched with only two, yet two double strokes. On the one hand it is said that the Lordhas made His mouth like a sharp sword, and that He has made Him (the Servant) like a polished shaft. The prominent mention of the mouth of the Servant shows that His task consisted eminently in speaking. It is clear that here only a speaking of divine things according to his calling is meant. Thus the Servant of God is characterized as a prophet. God called and equipped him that he might give sharp, incisive testimony to the divine truth. The expression: “he made my mouth a sharp sword,” is really a metonymy. For what produces the effect of a sharp sword is not the mouth in itself, but the word that proceeds from it (comp. Isa_11:4; Rev_1:16; Heb_4:12). In the words: “he made me a polished (בָּרוּר, “smooth, polished to gleaming,” hence easily penetrating, comp. Job_33:3; Zep_3:9) shaft,” the metonymy is pushed still further, as, not only the mouth, but (for the sake of brevity and manifoldness) the whole person stands for the word that proceeds from it. Thus is ascribed to the Servant a penetrating effectiveness that seizes and arouses men to their inmost souls. The experience of such inward operation is not agreeable to such as are not born from that Spirit whose sword and shaft by the Servant penetrate their hearts. These, according to the spirit that rules them, react against it with murderous wrath. For, incapable of meeting the thrusts of the Servant of God with like spiritual weapons, they seek with fleshly ones to silence the mouth that molests them. And they would soon succeed were not that mouth under a higher protection. Hence the Prophet here represents the sword and shaft as at once sharp-cutting and well protected. It is not otherwise usual to describe the cutting sword as one well concealed, and the pointed shaft as one safely hid in the quiver. For sword and shaft are in nowise there in order to be hid under the hand or in the quiver. But the Prophet does not carry out his figure consistently. Having Isa_49:2; Isa_49:1 a, compared the mouth to a sharp sword, the sword designates in 1b the whole person. For when he says: in the shadow of His hand hath He hid me, he, of course, means primarily the sword, which, as the shaft in the quiver, is hid in the sheath under the hand held over it. But here the concealed sword is no longer image of the word, but of the person from which the sword-like, effective word proceeds. But in Isa_49:2; Isa_49:2 a, it is not said, as according to 1a, one might expect, “He made my mouth a shaft.” That is said under the influence of 1b, and, as remarked, presses the metonymy further. Still, by the polished shaft the word is meant, whereas הסתירני in 2b again refers to the person. Evidently the Prophet would say, that the one whose word will work on men as sword and shaft, shall at the same time be protected against the hostile opposition of those that are struck, as a sword over whose hands its mighty Lord holds His sheltering hand (comp. Isa_51:16), as a shaft that is hid in the quiver (comp. Psa_127:5). I cannot believe that the “hiding” refers to the “time preceding the period of appearing, or eternity.” Why then would the clauses בצל ידו החביאני and באשׁפתו הסתירני stand after? And did the thought require prominence, that the Servant before His appearance was protected? Certainly not. But it did need to be made prominent that the Servant, whilst He roused the world to bitter wrath, was at the same time hid safely.
In Isa_49:3 the motive of this protection is given. The Lord cannot leave unprotected the Servant by whom He will glorify Himself. Thus ויאמר is to be construed as explanatory. The Lord not only actually affords His protection: He says to him also why. He protects him because he is His servant, His instrument, and in fact one that in strife and victory shall reveal and glorify the power of God. Israel is, of course, not in apposition with the subject, but a second predicate, parallel with my servant. But here one may by no means take “Israel” as a designation of the nation. For the expression is to be explained as an allusion to Gen_32:28 : “Thy name shall be called no more of Jacob, but Israel: for thou hast striven with God and men and hast prevailed.” As there is a second Adam, a second David, and Solomon, so there is a second Israel. Jacob, at the time he received the name Israel, had sustained not only many perilous conflicts with men, but also the conflict with the mysterious appearance of the angel. We may not doubt that this his contending with God was also typical. Also He, whose type he was, must pass through conflict to victory, through pains and labor to rest, through shame to glory. Isa_49:2 designates the conflicts that the Servant of God had to sustain with men. That He had also to contend with God, who was at the same time His protector, we see from Mat_26:36 sqq. Conflict and strife is the task of His earthly existence, but in the contender with God and by Him Jehovah glorifies Himself. For His decree of salvation realizes itself in the whole fullness of its love, wisdom and glory only in and through the second Israel. Of course not at once. For the Servant of God, during the period of His conflict, has dark hours, in which it appears as if He had labored in vain (Isa_49:4; comp. Isa_30:7; Isa_65:23; Job_39:16), consumed His strength for emptiness and a breath (see Text, and Gramm.).
When, spite of all mighty operations of the Spirit, only inferior success, or even decided miscarriage, evidenced by the hatred of the majority of the people, is His reward, such despondency might well come over Him. But He consoles himself that His right is still with (אֵת=penes, kept preserved by) Jehovah, and His reward (comp. Isa_40:10) with His God. With this the course of life of the Servant of Jehovah is briefly sketched, and the outwardly observable fruit of it designated. In both respects the result is, indeed, unfavorable, but the faith and hope of the Servant of God is not shaken.
3. And now saith—end of the earth.
Isa_49:5-6. In Isa_49:4 the Servant of Jehovah expresses the assured hope that, spite of past miscarriage, His cause will yet have a good issue. That this hope is well founded is declared by all that follows to Isa_49:13. For in these verses the Lord gives His Servant, in threefold gradation, the consoling promise that from lowliness He shall be raised to great glory. Therefore ועתה here is not contrastive, but is to be construed as confirmatory: “and now also really” (comp. Isa_5:3; Isa_5:5). With joyful emotion the Servant repeats Isa_49:5 first of all the facts that had served as the basis of His hope, and now after a momentary shaking prove to be actually steadfast. First He refers to the Lord’s having prepared Him for His Servant even from His mother’s womb (comp. on Isa_49:1 b). And, indeed, He was prepared as a Servant for the sake of a work, whose accomplishment the Lord must very pressingly desire in His own interest. For how often has not the Lord given assurance that for His own sake He will accomplish the redemption of Israel (comp., e.g., Isa_48:9; Isa_48:11)! This work is the restoration of Israel to its God. We encounter here therefore the so important notion of שׁוּב, concerning which see above Text. and Gram. Yet shall I—my strength. These words form a parenthesis. What the Servant of God hoped for, according to Isa_49:4 a, which in Isa_49:5 a the Lord holds out to Him indirectly, He here describes as a second possession: He shall be honored, if not in the eyes of men, yet in God’s eyes (בעיני different from לעיני, comp. Isa_5:21). Who does not recall here Joh_5:41-44; Joh_8:50)? His calling the Lord His strength forms the antithesis to the previously expressed (Isa_49:4 a) sense of His own weakness (comp. Isa_12:2; Psa_28:7).
“And he said,” (Isa_49:6), resumes the discourse interrupted by the parenthesis, in order to add something stronger to what is said, Isa_49:5. For the Servant having stated (Isa_49:5) that His task was the restoration of Israel to Jehovah, He now announces that, in the moment of His despondency, Jehovah has promised that that original task shall be small compared with (see Text. and Gram.) what henceforth is to be the aim of His activity: the Servant shall become the light of the Gentiles, and bear the salvation to the end of the earth. The expression, “raise upthe tribes of Jacob, says more than one at first sight supposes. For it implies that the nation shall be restored according to its original distribution into twelve tribes. But after the deportation of the Ten tribes into the Assyrian captivity this never happened. For the great mass of the Ten tribes disappeared in the exile. The two tribes of Judah and Benjamin did indeed in greater number return; but after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus all knowledge of tribal belongings ceased. First in Rev_7:4 sqq. do we encounter again the sharp distinction of the Twelve tribes, and in Mat_19:29 it is said that the Twelve Apostles shall sit on twelve thrones to judge the Twelve tribes of Israel. Therefore the restoration of the Twelve tribes can be ascribed neither to the people of Israel as a whole, nor to the ideal Israel, nor to the Prophet, nor to the prophetic institution. Only He shall also restore again the Twelve tribes who restores Israel generally, therefore the one who performs the work of הָשִׁיב (comp. on שׁוֹבֵב, Isa_49:5) in relation to the נְצוּרֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, i.e., to the שְׁאָר, the שְׁאֵרִית or בְּלֵיטָה (comp. Isa_4:2-3; Isa_6:13; Isa_10:20 sqq.) in its full comprehensiveness. For a light to the Gentiles, therefore for all nations, shall the Servant of God be made, as is also said Isa_42:6. Comp. Luk_2:32; Act_13:47. He that is the light of the nations shall also be their salvation (by metonymy for Saviour, bringer of salvation). In fact, by being their light, He becomes their salvation. The Prophet likely has in mind passages like Exo_15:2; 2Sa_10:11.
4. Thus saith——chose thee.
Isa_49:7. The Prophet confirms the hope expressed with growing certainty by the Servant of Jehovah (Isa_49:4 b–6), by introducing (Isa_49:7-8) the Lord Himself as speaker, to repeat to the Servant the promise of his deliverance and exaltation. The Lord designates Himself as the Redeemer of Israel, and his Holy One, because the things spoken of in the words that follow shall reveal, not only the redemption of the Servant, but also of Israel, and not only God’s gracious will, but also His holiness. But the Lord names His Servant by three predicates descriptive of His humiliation. This particular finds a stronger expression here than before or after. We hear sounds that, evidently serve as a prelude to what we hear in chap. 53, especially Isa_49:3. The נֶבֶּשׁ is here conceived of as the seat of pleasure and displeasure, longing and contempt (comp. Delitzsch, Psychology, IV. § 6, p. 160; Pro_23:2; Psa_27:12; Psa_35:25; Num_21:5; Job_6:7, etc.) בְּזֹה (see Text. and Gram.) is only used as here this once. The fact that the word occurs again only in Isa_53:3 (bis) is perhaps a not unimportant sign of the relation of our text to that. מתעב־גוי is qualitatively the same as בזה־נפשׁ, only quantitatively different. For the expression means: “he who makes the nation feel disgust, aversion.” It is easily seen how here, too, the allusion is to the “sensation” of the soul. But while בזה־נפשׁ designates an aversion felt in the inmost soul, גוי (meaning here neither the Israelite nor a heathen nation) expresses that the aversion is general, felt in the entire nation, in the entire natural community. For גוי is a people as a natural, worldly tribal communion (confluxus hominum). Hence the word designates the heathen nations, but also Israel, where it is spoken of in the sense just referred to (comp. Isa_1:4; Isa_9:2). A servant of rulers the Servant of Jehovah is called because by men in power generally, and thus not kings only, He is regarded as a slave, as an individual with no rights. Every one of any command or consideration, deals with Him arbitrarily. But this relation shall undergo a mighty change. The Servant shall be raised to such a height and consideration, that even those possessed of the greatest power, the kings, shall rise up at the sight of Him (Isa_14:9) and worship Him. Because of the Lord, etc., assigns a reason, and does not express the aim. The words recognize the connection between Jehovah and His Servant. Therefore for Jehovah’s sake, i.e., inwardly determined by Him who stands true to His word, and hence helps His Servant, for the sake of the Holy One in Israel, who does not suffer him who is once chosen to fall, they do that expressed in the words “kings shall see—worship:
5. Thus saith——upon His afflicted.
Isa_49:8-13. In this section, too, the Lord confirms with His own words the hope of His Servant. The particular of the humiliation, made so prominent in Isa_49:7, is here only alluded to. For I have heard thee and I have helped thee imply that the Servant was in a situation, out of which He must implore help. On the other hand the particular of mediation and effecting salvation is unfolded most gloriously. Everything must have its time. Also the Lord’s display of grace. It belongs only to the wisdom of God to know the right time for everything. Thus He did not let the Saviour of the world come before the time was fulfilled (Gal_4:4). So Paul understood our text (2Co_6:2). And Christ Himself (Luk_4:4), by taking Isa_61:1 sq., for a text, in general explains the time of His appearing as “the acceptable year,” which must be identical with the “acceptable time” of our text. The prophetic gaze, however, in the “year of salvation” sees comprehensively all those points of time that belong, by way of preparation and development, to this central point of the redemption of Israel. It begins with the deliverance from the Babylonish captivity and only ends in the completion of salvation in the world beyond. But it must be noted in our text, that the Prophet by no means has in mind the period of the redeeming appearance of the Servant of Jehovah in relation to the precedent suffering of Israel. But the time when He may appear to save is for the Servant Himself a time of salvation, in contrast with a precedent time of suffering, wherein He could not save because He Himself needed salvation in the highest degree. This appears from the antithesis of our ver. to Isa_49:7; Isa_49:4 a, and from the suffix [“thee”] in עניתין and עזרתין, which can refer to no one but the Servant of Jehovah. Therefore this Servant must also, in the deep sufferings He must undergo, await the time that the wisdom of God has determined for His own deliverance. Beside an “acceptable time” and I an “acceptable year” the Prophet also mentions an “acceptable day” Isa_58:5, where see. The acceptable day will be for the Servant, naturally a day of salvation, of deliverance. On ׳שׁועה see immediately below. עזרתיך comp. Isa_41:14. With ואצרד “I will preserve thee” the discourse receives a direction toward the future. The rescued shall at once become a rescuer. To this end He must Himself, first of all, be preserved from all further assaults. Then the Lordwill make Him a covenant of the people. The words: And I will preserve thee—people are repeated verbatim from Isa_42:6, where also see the explanation of the expression “covenant of the people.” This identity of language makes it evident that He who is made the covenant of the people is in both passages the same. Were the people of Israel meant by the mediator of the new covenant, then it would need to read גוֹיִם instead of עָם. For Israel cannot be at the same time the one covenanted and the mediator, of the covenant. Nor can Israel be the one to distribute the land, for the land is to be distributed among the Israelites. Nor does Israel raise up the land. For this raising up happens only by the raising up of the people, i.e, Israel itself. Nor can one say that this restorer and divider is the ideal Israel. For precisely this latter is the one which, as possessor of the new covenant is put in possession of the renovated inheritance, and which thereby raised up, will be made a glorious and mighty nation. To this there is something additional. Who does not, with “raise up the land,” and “cause to inherit the inheritances” recall Joshua, who raised up the land of Canaan to the honor of being the dwelling-place of the holy people and distributed it among the tribes of Israel (comp. Jos_1:6, תנחיל את־העם את־הארץ)? This makes it natural for us to regard the one that is helped in a day of salvation and who is to be a second restorer and divider of the land as a second Joshua, as in Isa_49:3, we learned to know him as a second Israel. The first Joshua had to divide the land as one already inhabited and cultivated. The second will distribute it to the returning exiles as one hitherto lying waste. From this it appears that the Prophet has in mind primarily those returning from the Babylonish exile. These, too, came back under the conduct of a יֵשׁוּעַ to Palestine (Ezr_2:2; Ezr_3:2; Ezr_3:8-9, etc.). But this was not the right fulfilment of this promise (comp. the remarks on הקים את־שׁבטי י׳ Isa_49:6). Here, again, the Prophet contemplates together beginning and end, and correctly describes what must happen as a preliminary meager fulfilment before the historical appearance of the personal Servant of Jehovah, as also His work.
In Isa_49:9 a (comp. Isa_42:7) the captives are addressed as persons; but in what follows they appear as a flock. The Prophet describes here, as often repeatedly in what has preceded, the all-important way home (Isa_40:11; Isa_41:17 sqq.; Isa_43:2; Isa_43:15 sqq.; Isa_44:27; Isa_48:20 sq.). As in Isa_40:11, he represents Israel as a flock that finds pasture, both in the way, and on the high places (46:18) that are more arid than the valleys, so that they shall neither hunger nor thirst, nor suffer from the treacherous Fata Morgana (see on Isa_35:7). For Israel shall be under the best of leadership: “he that hath mercy on them shall lead them,” (that is of course, indirectly, by the Servant according to Isa_49:8 b), even by springs of water shall He guide them.
Isa_49:11 is to be explained according to Isa_40:4. Jehovah will lead His people the next and directest way. To this end the mountains, exempt from human power, but subject to the Lord as His mountains, i.e., as His creatures, must submit to be a way, i.e., doubtless where necessary lower themselves, while the valleys must fill up, and become elevated causeways (מסלות). To the particular that the return shall be happily accomplished by God’s help, the Prophet adds, as in Isa_43:5 sq., that the return shall take place from every quarter. Having begun with the general מרחוק, and added afterwards the more exact designations of the quarters of the heavens, he prompts the conjecture that only after the word of general contents was written, did the thought of the plagae coeli come to him. Hence we will not press מרחוק, nor venture to give it the meaning “south” in antithesis to צפון. For it never has it elsewhere. The passage Psa_107:3, may not be cited as proof that יָם in antithesis to צפון means the south. For the latter passage appears just to rest on ours, and only proves that the author of that Psalm thought he must make מים in our text denote “from the south.” Therefore I believe that מים here as everywhere else means “from the west.” To this is put in antithesis the land of Sinim, as the remotest eastern land. This name must any way represent an entire quarter of the heavens and probably the east. Neither the people סִינִי mentioned Gen_10:17, who belonged to the Phoenicians and dwelt in the north of Lebanon (comp. Knobel on Gen_10:17), nor Sin-Pelusium (Saad. Bochart, Ewald), and still less the Kurd clan Sin (Egli, Zeitschr. für wissensch. Theol. vi. p. 400 sqq.), meets these demands. Hence the majority of opinion inclines to understand the Chinese to be meant by the Sinim. [See a very copious note of J. A. Alex., in loc., who holds the same view.—Tr.]. It has been abundantly shown that already in very remote times wares from India and China were received by the Phoenicians in the emporiums of the Euphrates and Arabia, and brought by them to the west (comp. beside Gesenius in his Thes., and Comm., and Lassen, Ind. Alterthumsk. especially MoversPhoen. II. 3, p. 240 sq.). But if one ask how the Prophet came to call the Chinese by the name סִינִים, it is much questioned whether already in Isaiah’s time they could be named Sinim as inhabitants of a land Thsin or Tsin (comp. Wuttke, Die Entstehung der Schrift., p. 241). Victor 5. Strauss (in an excursus in Delitzsch, p. 712) consequently takes the view that the name סין is to be derived from the Chinese sjin, i.e., man. The extraordinarily frequent use that the Chinese made of this word, not only to designate all possible qualities, conditions, sorts of business, but also the relations of descent, moved foreigners to call the nation itself by this name. A decision on this point must be waited for. In conclusion the Prophet summons heaven and earth to rejoice at the important fact, so interesting also to them, that the Lord has again had mercy on His chosen people (comp. Isa_44:23; Isa_52:9; Isa_55:12). The Prophet closes here in an artistic way as with a. forte allegro, while the following strophe begins with a piano maestoso.
Footnotes:
[1]1 Or, my reward.
[2]2 Or, That Israel may be gathered to him, and I may, etc.
[3]3 Or, Art thou lighter than that thou shouldest, etc.
[4]4 Or, desolations.
[5]a I have made thee.
[6]5 Or, To him that is despised in soul.
[7]b hath chosen.
[8]6 Or, raise up.
[9]c the mirage.
2. FORSAKEN ISRAEL BUILT AFRESH FROM THE GENTILES
Isa_49:14-26
14 But Zion said, The Lord hath forsaken me,
And 10my Lord hath forgotten me.
15 11Can a woman forget her sucking child,
12That she should not have compassion on the son of her womb?
Yea, they may forget,
Yet will I not forget thee.
16 Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands;
Thy walls are continually before me.
17 Thy children 13shall make haste;
Thy destroyers and they that made thee waste shall go forth of thee.
18 Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold:
All these gather themselves together, and come to thee.
As I live, saith the Lord,
Thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all, as with an ornament,
And bind them on thee, as a bride doeth.
19 For thy waste and thy desolate places, and the land of thy destruction,
14Shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants,
And they that swallowed thee up shall be far away.
20 The children 15which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other,
Shall say again in thine ears, The place is too straight for me:
16Give place to me that I may dwell.
21 Then shalt thou say in thine heart,
Who hath 17begotten me these,
Seeing I have lost my children, and am desolate,
18A captive, and removing to and fro? and who hath brought up these?
Behold, I was left alone; these, where had they been?
22 Thus saith the Lord 19God,
Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles,
And set up my standard to the 20people:
And they shall bring thy sons in their 21arms,
And thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders.
23 And kings shall be thy 22nursing fathers,
And their 23queens thy nursing mothers:
They shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth,
And lick up the dust of thy feet;
And thou shalt know that I am the Lord:
24For they shall not be ashamed that wait for me.
24 Shall the prey be taken from the mighty,
Or 25the 26lawful captive delivered?
25 But thus saith the Lord,
Even the 27captives of the mighty shall be taken away,
And the prey of the terrible shall be delivered:
For I will contend with him that contendeth with thee,
And I will save thy children.
26 And I will 28feed them that oppress thee with their own flesh;
And they shall be drunken with their own blood, as with 29sweet wine:
And all flesh shall know
That I the Lord am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer,
The mighty One of Jacob.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
See List for the recurrence of the words: Isa_49:15. עוּל. Isa_49:16. חָקַק. Isa_49:17. מָהַר. Isa_49:20. שִׁכֻּלִים. Isa_49:21. גֹּלהָ part fem. from מוּסָרָה = סוּרָה–גָּלָה again only Jer_17:13. Isa_49:22. חֹצֶן. Isa_49:23, generally.
Isa_49:15. מִן before רַחֵם has the sense of a negative conjunction=so that not.—In the clause גם אלה וגו׳, as is often the case, the conditional particle is omitted.
Isa_49:19. I construe the first כִּי as causal, but the second as the pleonastic כִּי that is wont to stand after a verbum dicendi (here to be supplied, comp. Isa_7:9).—תצרי מיושׁב is: thou wilt be strait from the viewpoint of the dweller, i.e., thou wilt be too strait for dwelling. תֵּצְרִי from צָרַר; comp. Olsh., § 243, b. [Fuerst, Lex. derives it from יָצַר.—Tr.].
Isa_49:20. The imperat. גְּשָׁה relates necessarily to the same person as the suffixes in אָזְנַיִךְ and שׁכִּלַיִךְ.—לִי is not dat. loci, but dat. commodi.
Isa_49:22. The expression נשׂא יר occurs in Isaiah only here. It plainly means “with uplifted hand to give a sign.” For similar expressions comp. Isa_10:32; Isa_11:15; Isa_13:2; Isa_19:16. On the other hand חרים נם occurs again Isa_62:10; yet more frequently נשִׂא נם. (Isa_5:26; Isa_11:12; Isa_13:2; Isa_18:3).
Isa_49:24. Great difficulty is presented by שׁבי צריק, which seems to correspond to שׁבי גבור of Isa_49:25. Is שׁבי צריק the captivitas, i.e., captive of the righteous, or is it the troop of captives taken from the righteous, i.e., the righteous nation, Israel (comp. גְּזֵלַת הֶעָנִי the plunder taken from the poor, Isa_3:14), or is it the captive righteous, or, finally, is שׁבי עריץ to be read instead of שׁבי צריק, which the Syr. rendering “captivitas herois.” the Vulg. “captum a robusto,” the LXX., ἐὰν αἰχμαλωτεύσῃ τις ἀδίκως seem to justify? First, in regard to the change of reading, I do not think we can rely here on the ancient versions, for they were evidently uncertain about the sense, and guessed at it. The Syr. without more ado, felt justified in making the corresponding members of the parallel conform, since it translates. num auferetur praeda gigantis aut captivitas herois eripietur? Immo sic ait Dominus: praeda gigantis auferetur et captivitas herois eripietur.” We would, therefore, be only continuing the arbitrariness of the ancients did we read עָרִיץ for צַרִּיק.—If we translate “the captives of the righteous one,” then it must either be admitted that he is called a righteous one who still holds captive the people of God (at the very time when, according to Isa_49:23 sq., other heathen powers have begun to bring them back with great honor), and is fearfully punished for it (Isa_49:25 sq.), or all sorts of far-fetched meanings must be given to צריק (as e.g., J. D. Mich. makes it mean “victor,” or Paulus, after Schultens, = one who is right, what he ought to be, viz., a brave soldier).—But if we take שׁבי צריק as genitive of the object according to Isa_3:14, then we must either take it in the sense of “plunder” (Gesenius), which however is poorly supported by appeal to 2Ch_21:17, or else it is forgotten that when I say “to pillage the poor,” what is pillaged is not the poor man himself but his goods. But if I say “to lead the righteous man captive,” then the object of capture is the righteous man himself. Hence שׁבי צריק were then nothing else than a troop of captives consisting of righteous persons. But then one would expect שׁבי צַרִּיקִים, since, indeed, the notion שְׁבִי, quite differently from גִּזֵלָה, refers to a plurality. But since it reads simply שׁבי צריק, I think it is to be translated simply “captivitas justa” (compare גּוֹי צריק Isa_26:2) i.e., “righteous prisoner.” The qualification צריק is prompted by Israel being the predominant thought in mind.
Isa_49:25. אֵת before יריבך can be a preposition as in Isa_1:8; Jer_2:9; comp. Hos_4:1; Hos_12:3; but also sign of the accusative, as in Isa_27:8; Deu_33:8; Job_10:2. The accusative expresses more, and better suits the context.
Isa_49:26. מוֹנֶה part. Hiph. from יָנָה (oppressit, comp. Lev_19:33; Lev_25:14; Deu_23:17) occurs only here.—אָבִיר=אַבִּיר, occurs only in the connection יעקב אֲבִיר Gen_49:24; Isa_60:16; Psa_132:2; Psa_132:5, and אביר ישׂראל Isa_1:24.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. In the second half of the chapter, in antithesis to the Servant of Jehovah, the Restorer, appears Zion, that, according to Isa_49:8 sqq., was to be restored by Him, and is restored. Accordingly, from Isa_49:14 on nothing more is said of the Servant of the Lord, but the discourse is only of Zion as the married wife that is apparently forsaken, yet is still tenderly beloved by the Lord, of her new upbuilding by countless children that are born to her, she knows not where or how, and (in contrast with this), of the judgments of God that shall come on the nations hostile to Israel.
2. But Zion said——continually before me.
Isa_49:14-16. Zion can only say “the Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me,” when the Theocracy seems broken and irrevocably destroyed. The time after the destruction by Nebuchadnezzar was such. But with as much justice the time after the destruction by Titus may be regarded as such. The Prophet sees both together, as previously (Isa_49:8 sqq.) he had seen together the return out of the Babylonian and the Roman exile. Therefore these words of Zion also fall, and that very particularly, in the time when the Servant of Jehovah must lament that He has labored in vain (Isa_49:3). Is it an accident that the lament of Zion, Isa_49:14, follows immediately after the lament of the Servant of Jehovah? Did the Servant not need to lament that He labored in vain, then Zion would not have had to lament that it was forsaken. Both stand in the closest causal connection. To Zion’s complaint Jehovah returns a wonderfully consoling reply. Here, too, as in Isa_42:14; Isa_46:3 sq.: Isa_66:13, there is ascribed to Jehovah a feminine sensibility, a more than maternal love. How could the Lord forget Zion, seeing that her image was not merely in His heart, but also inscribed upon His hands, as a continual souvenir always before His eyes! In general these words call to mind Deu_6:8 sq.; Deu_11:18, comp. Pro_3:3; Pro_7:3. Others refer to the custom of branding or tattooing on the forehead, arm, or wrist of a slave the name of his master, of a soldier the name of his general, of an idolater the name of his divinity (comp. Gesen. on Isa_44:5). Also Rev_13:16 alludes to this custom. From “thy walls are continually before me,” it is seen that the Lord would say He has the image of the city, not its name, always before His eyes. For the walls represent the outlines of the figure.
3. Thy children——where had they been. Isa_49:17-21. Zion, forsaken and repudiated by her husband, and thus supposing herself debarred from bearing children, is in a wonderful way suddenly surrounded by the most numerous fresh growth, the richest blessing of children and ornament of children. Thy children hasten hither, says Isa_49:17. Manifestly there is in בָּנַיִךְ an allusion to בֹּנַיִךְ, as also the LXX., Vulg.Targ. Ar. actually seem to have read. Luther, too, translates “thy builders will hasten”. Though this reading is neither justifiable nor a necessity, still the contrast with the second half of the verse demands that we press the radical notion in בניך, viz.בָּנָה, and recognize in it an allusion to the fact that it is the children which, so to speak, as the living stones build the house, the family, the generation (comp. Gen_16:2; Exo_1:21; Deu_25:9; 1Sa_2:35; 1Sa_25:28; 2Sa_7:27; Rth_4:11). Therefore, those who join stone to stone, that the house of Israel may grow endlessly, shall come on in haste, but those that destroy and desolate it shall make off. Israel, however, the mother, shall look around. She sees a great crowd. It has one goal: Zion. Thither all hasten. At first Zion cannot credit it, that all these press on to her as their maternal centre. But the Lord assures her of the important fact with an oath (חי אני, first, Num_14:21; Num_14:28; Deu_32:40; only here in Isa.; Jer_22:24; Jer_46:18; most frequent in Eze_5:11; Eze_14:16; Eze_16:48, etc. Comp. Isa_45:23). Zion may regard all this as her own; she may put on the glorious crown of children as an ornament; she may gird herself with them as with the splendid girdle of the bride (קִשֻׁרִים, Isa_3:20). But Zion makes objection. She points to the ruins of her cities, her wasted land. And, in fact, is there no contradiction in this double act of God? On the one hand He destroys the land and decimates the people, and then He brings on a countless multitude as children. And then what is a great multitude to do in a desert? In reply, the Lord persists in His assertion that Zion is to regard this crowd as her blessing of children. For, He says: as regards thy ruins and desolations and thy devastated land, I say to thee, that now thou shalt be too contracted to dwell in (see Text. and Gram.). Therefore, far from being frightened off by ruins and desolations, the new people even press on. Here is a straitened distress of a new sort! Formerly it was the Philistines, Ammonites, Syrians, Assyrians, etc., that took away the bread from the Israelites in their own land (comp. 33:30). Now it is her own children! On the other hand, the ancient מְבַלְּעִים, the ancient devourers have disappeared! That תצרי מיושׁב is more exactly explained Isa_49:20. The בני שׁכלים appear as speakers, and beg the mother to make room for them. It is especially to be noted that the mother is addressed as the representative of the family (see Text. and Gram.). The individual crowded inhabitants, one might think, ought to apply to their individual neighbors. But such a moving act can only be possible as the act of the totality. Hence the Prophet lets the demand be addressed to the ideal representative of the totality. So that it is to be remarked respecting נשׁה, that the word evidently means, not a moving to the speaker, but to the one dwelling in the opposite direction, thus not a moving to but away (comp. Gen_19:9).
Zion, destroyed by Assyrians, Babylonians, Romans (for the Prophet contemplates all these together), stands at last solitary, robbed of all her children. The ideal Zion has become essentially an abstraction, devoid of being. For when all single individuals have disappeared, as was the case after the final destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, then, indeed, the representative of the totality has nothing more to represent, she no more has anything real on which to lean. If now a numerous Israel comes on, then the question of Isa_49:21 is quite natural: who hath borne me these?יָלַר may not be rendered “begotten.” For then Zion would know who had borne these children, but not who had begotten them. She rather says: I have not borne them; who then has borne them for me?—ואני וגו׳ is a causal clause: for I was childless (שׁכולה only here in Isa.), unfruitful (גלמורה, sterilis, again only Job_3:7; Job_15:34; Job_30:3), banished, driven away. Since the children stand before her, not as new born, but as grown up, she asks further: Who hath brought them up for me?
4. Thus saith——that wait for me. Isa_49:22-23. Now the Lord solves the riddle. The countless children are those converted to Jehovah from the Gentiles, and thus primarily become members of the spiritual Israel. But the spiritual Israel is the inward, everlasting core of the fleshly Israel. As the ἔσω ἄνθρωπος is the everlasting, abiding core of men in general; as therefore after the new birth, after death and the resurrection, the core of the personality remains ever the same, spite of all the changes of the outward manifestation, so is the “spiritual Israel” ever the same ideal personality that had already formed the centre of the “fleshly Israel.” Hence, with our Prophet, it is the same subject that complains of the ruin of the outward Theocracy and the loss of motherhood ascribed to that, and then still is required to regard the converts from the Gentile world as its children. Hence I do not believe that by the children coming out of the Gentiles we are to understand the returning Israelites. For Israel could not ask, with reference to these: Who hath borne me these? Though for a time they might have been lost to the sight of the ideal mother, still must she have known them again and recognized them as children of her own body. Whence so many children, whom I have yet not borne myself? is Israel’s inquiry. The Lord replies: at my sign the Gentiles bring thy children hither. Two things are new here: first, that the streaming hither of the children of Zion happens at the command (see Text. and Gram.) of Jehovah; second, that the Gentiles bring them hither with the greatest care and reverence. The first, already, shows that Jehovah and Zion have a common interest in the matter. They are in fact children of Jehovah and of Zion, viz. spiritual children that have received the spiritual Zion from its Lord, and are now come on to build again Zion corporally, in a certain sense (Isa_49:17). This construction is confirmed by what follows: And they shall bring thy sons in their bosom, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders. Therefore these children born in the heathen nations are called Zion’s, the children of the spiritual Israel. Or, as Paul says, Gal_4:26 : “But Jerusalem which is from above is free, which is the mother of us all.” Whether he himself understood that correctly or not, still the Prophet sees in the spirit that the outward, corporeal Zion (“the Jerusalem that now is”) must be repudiated, (Gal_4:30; Gen_21:10; Gen_21:12), destroyed; but that in place of it shall come out of the spirit of Zion (now truly made free and far extended) a countless posterity, that shall build itself up a new, greater and more glorious Zion even in the corporeal sense (comp. Isa_54:1 sqq.). הֹצֶן is the sinus formed by the wide upper garment, in which one may even carry small children. For this expression, as also the one following: they shall be carried on the shoulder, denotes such children as demand careful watch and culture. Such care the new Zion shall receive even on the part of princes, i.e., states (comp. Isa_60:16; Isa_66:12). We need not here explain how this prophecy has been realized in a good as well as an evil sense. But fact it is, that the Zion here meant by the Prophet has received from the rich of this world not only nurture, but also reverence, that partly went the length even of idolatry (אפים ארץ; comp. Gen_19:1; Gen_42:6; 1Sa_24:9, etc.). The Prophet distinguishes here as little the individual princes as he does the gradations of the fulfilment. He does not know that he portrays the mutual relation of the Christian church and the Christian state, and comprehends in one expression blessing and curse, the earthly beginnings and the heavenly completion of this relation. The mention of princesses along with the kings has likely only a rhetorical significance. In a picture of well-nurtured little children, the nurses must not be wanting. Thus Zion will experience that its God is the true God, the eternally existent One, whose divinity evidences itself to men in this, that those who, even in the deepest distress, do not lose their trust in Him, will not be brought to shame (comp. Isa_40:3; Psa_25:3).
5. Shall the prey——mighty One of Jacob, Isa_49:24-26. The verses 22, 23, testify to a surprising turn in the sentiment of the world-powers toward Israel. The inquiry is suggested: Will all Gentile powers be converted to such a recognition of the high significance of Israel? And if not, what is the prospect for those Israelites that are held fast by such nations as persist in their hostility. To this the Prophet replies in these verses, 24–26. He says, to begin with: a strong man will not allow his plunder or captives to be taken from him. In Luk_11:21 the Lord evidently has in mind our passage when He speaks of “the strong man armed keeping his palace.” (On שׁבי צריק, see Text. and Gram.). Israel, ready for the return home, is, any way צדיק, however it may have been with respect to the guilt or innocence of those that were led away into exile. With reference to Israel it is therefore asked, whether perhaps righteous prisoners are easier to free than others. Of course one would think that, with a strong man, it mattered little whether his captives came into his power justly or unjustly, that thus under any circumstances it were impossible to take his captives from him. But the Prophet, notwithstanding, answers the question whether this be possible, with yes. For the Lord has said so, in case Israel is this captivitas, this spoil. In that case the Lord Himself will be the champion for Israel against those contending against it (יָרִיב, comp. Psa_35:1; Jer_18:19 and יָרֵב, Hos_5:13; Hos_10:6), and will redeem his children (see Text. and Gram.) In Isa_49:26 a, by a strong figure, it is described how the Lord will contend with the contenders; He will reduce them to a condition where they will eat their own flesh and make themselves drunk with their own blood as with new wine. It seems absurd to point to an historical realization of this as e.g.Knobel does by referring our passage to “dissensions among the enemies of Cyrus,” and especially to the desertion of the Hyrcanians and of the Babylonian subject-kings Gobryas and Gadatas from the Babylonian cause (Cyrop.Isa_4:2; Isa_4:6; Isa_5:1-3). Our entire prophecy has an eschatological character. It presupposes the final judgment of the “fleshly Israel,” and describes how, like a phœnix, the new spiritual Israel will arise out of its ashes. The strong figure of eating one’s own flesh, etc., recalls such texts as Isa_9:19 sq.; Zec_11:9; Zec_9:15. Thus shall the whole world know that the alone true, eternally existent God, Jehovah, and the Deliverer and Redeemer of Israel, the Mighty One of Jacob, is one and the same. For Israel’s deliverance is also only a means to attain the highest end, viz. that all the world may be blessed, and God’s holy name may be known and praised. There occurs a repetition of Isa_49:26 b in Isa_60:16.
Footnotes:
[10]the Lord.
[11]Will.
[12]Heb. From having compassion.
[13]omit shall.
[14]I say thou shalt be too narrow for the.
[15]childlessness, or bereavement
[16]Move for me.
[17]borne.
[18]An exile, and banished.
[19]Jehovah.
[20]peoples.
[21]Heb. bosom,
[22]Heb. nourishers.
[23]Heb. princesses.
[24]whose expectants shall not be ashamed.
[25]Heb. the captivity of the just.
[26]righteous.
[27]Heb. captivity.
[28]matte them eat
[29]Or, new wine.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. On Isa_49:1. “Jactat vocationem suam ad confirmdos gentium animos, ne offendantur stulta et infirma Christi specie, qui praedicatur crucifixus. Nolite me ideo contemnere, inquit. Venio divina auctoritate.”—Luther.
2. On Isa_49:1-2. “When Jesus says here, God has called Him by name from His mother’s womb on, it may be seen that no one should press into an office without regular commission (Heb_5:4), and how no man can receive any thing unless it be given him from heaven (Joh_3:27). The power of the divine word is this, that it cuts as a sharp sword and pierces as an arrow and wounds the hearts of men, on the one hand so that they know their sin, accept the offered pardon in Christ, are inflamed with love towards God, and receive everlasting life, on the other hand, however, so that they wilfully oppose the word, and are thus wounded to everlasting death. For this sword of the word can do both, can kill and make alive, as also Paul says, it is to some a savor of death unto death, but to some a savor of life unto life (2Co_2:16).”—Renner.
3. On Isa_49:3. “Jesus is the true, perfect Servant of God, by whom the Father perfectly carries out all His gracious purpose. He is the true Israel, hero of God, and contender with God in one person, and only in and through Him do other men belong to the true Israel. Through Him God performed His highest work; for He conquered sin and death, and won peace with God by His soul-struggle and His bitter suffering. So God is now rightly known in Him, and praised as love.” Diedrich.
4. On Isa_49:4. “Christ Himself does not suppose. But we, when we see the beginning of Christ, must think and suppose, Christ labors in vain. For if one looks to His birth, to His preaching, to His suffering, to His death, to His poor twelve fisher servants by whom He would reform and take possession of the whole world, one must suppose, for the life of him it will never do. Yet the Lord’s purpose will still prosper in His hand (Isa_53:11), and His counsel is wonderful and gloriously accomplishes itself (Isa_28:29). But if a preacher happens to think that his labor is in vain, let him consider, first, that the affair is not his, but God’s, who will carry it out (Psa_74:22), for it would be a reproach to him to let it fail. Second, let him consider, that God has called him. He that has put him into the regular office, will doubtless also make him prosper.” Cramer.
5. [On Isa_49:6. “We may learn hence, (1) that God will raise up the tribes of Jacob; that is, that large numbers of the Jews shall yet be ‘preserved’ or recovered to Himself; (2) that the gospel shall certainly be extended to the ends of the earth; (3) that it is an honor to be made instrumental in extending the true religion. So great is this honor, that it is mentioned as the highest which could be conferred even on the Redeemer in this world. And if He deemed it an honor, shall we not also regard it as a privilege to engage in the work of Christian Missions, and endeavor to save the world from ruin? There is no higher glory for man than to tread in the footsteps of the Son of God; and he who, by self-denial and charity, and personal toil and prayer, does most for the conversion of this whole world to God, is most like the Redeemer, and will have the most elevated seat in the glories of the heavenly world.” Barnes.].
6. On Isa_49:7. He who among all beings unites the greatest contrasts in Himself is that one Mediator between God and man. For He alone belongs to two worlds, and He alone stands on the lowest and the highest step. Many have been born in a stall, and have hung on a cross, but in no one case was contempt so contemptible as in His, and no one felt it so keenly as He. To none however but to Him, is given a name that is above every name (Php_2:9 sqq.). “Eo ipso vocabulo, quo se commendat, significat faciem ecclesiae … . Coram mundo enim nihil ecclesia est calamitosius, nihil improbius, nihil magis profanum. Quare vocat eam animam contemptibilem, gentem abominabilem et servum tyrranorum. Hi sunt magni tituli Christianorum, quorum si quos pudet, illi cogitent, se frustra Christum quaerere.”Luther.
7. On Isa_49:8. The time of Christ’s sufferings is here called the time of the gracious hearing of the Messiah; the great day of salvation, in which the salvation of men was acquired by Christ; the time of help and deliverance of the Saviour calling for help in deep waters of suffering (Psa_69:2-3), the time of mighty preservation and protection of the Redeemer pressed down to the ground by the burden of sin, the time when God set Him for a covenant among the people.” Starke.
8. On Isa_49:12. Although even in the Old Testament, some of the heathen were scatteringly added on, as is seen in the case of Jethro, Ruth, Rahab, the Gibeonites, Ittai the Gittite (2Sa_15:19) and others beside; yet this was first to take place in full measure in the time of the coming of the Messiah, who is especially the consolation of all Gentiles (Hag_2:8).” Cramer.
9. On Isa_49:14. “If thou thinkest, God has wholly forsaken thee, then He has thee in His arms and fondles thee.”—Luther.——“We are not forgotten of God, for there is a memorandum written before Him of those that love the Lord (Mal_3:16). Yea, He has a fatherly and motherly love for us, seeing we are borne by Him in His body (Isa_46:3). We ought, for this reason, not to judge by outward fortune and looks, how God is minded toward us, but hold exclusively to the word and promises.”—Cramer.
10. On Isa_49:15. “God compares Himself to a father (Psa_103:13; Mal_3:17), and if that were not enough, also to a mother. Now as to how a father’s and mother’s heart is affected, a father and mother can easily measure with respect to their children. Examples: Hagar cannot bear to see her son Ishmael die (Gen_21:16); the real mother before Solomon’s judgment seat cannot suffer her son to be divided (1Ki_3:26). Therefore, now God breaks His heart over us, so that He must have mercy on us (Jer_31:20). Yea, God’s love far excels the fatherly and motherly στοργή. For there are cases where pitiful women have even boiled their children (Lam_4:10). Examples: In the siege of Samaria (2Ki_6:20), and in the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans (Josephus). But God is very differently affected toward us, for He is love itself, grace itself, compassion itself.”—Cramer.
11. On Isa_49:22-23. It was known to the Gentiles that the Jews called themselves the chosen people of God. How they made sport of it may, among other instances, be seen from Cicero’s oration pro Flacco, chap. 28. This Flaccus, while administering the province of Asia, had prohibited the Jews from sending the annual temple tax to Jerusalem. This constituted one of the points of complaint against him. For the Jews must even at that time have had not inconsiderable influence in Rome. This appears from Cicero giving it to be understood that the matter was dealt with “non longe a gradibus Aureliis” (probably the Jews’ quarter for dwelling or business at that time). He adds: “Scis quanta sit manus, quanta concordia, quantum valeat in concionibus”. Then he continues to speak summissa voce, in order to be understood only by the judges, and not by such as would set the Jews on him. He justifies the procedure of his client as quite legal. Finally he concludes with the words: Sua cuique civitati religio est, nostra nobis. Stantibus Hierosolymis, pacatisque Judaeis, tamen istorum religio sacrorum a splendore hujus imperii, gravitate nominis nostri, majorum institutis abhorrebat; nunc vero hoc magis, quod illa gens, quid de imperio nostro sentiret, ostendit armis. Quam cara Diis immortalibus esset, docuit, quod est victa, quod elocata, quod servata. This last clause evidently contains mockery. Cicero starts with saying that the Jews were described as especially dear to the gods. But how much there is in this special favor of the gods may be seen from the gens judaica being victa, elocata servata. This language seems to be a play on words. For the words can mean: “conquered, hired out, saved,”—but also: “conquered, transplanted (from their home to some other place), made slaves.” Then servare would be formed ad hoc from servus, as, e.g., sociare from socius, filiare from filius, etc. Pompeius brought many thousands of the Jews to Rome, who being found useless as slaves, laid the foundation of the Jewish congregation of after times. Comp. Pressel in Herz., R.-Enc., XVII., p. 253.
12. On Isa_49:23. “Worldly dominion should tend to this, viz., to seek the best advantage of the Church of God, and maintain its protection. Otherwise, if God were not concerned about His Church, kings and princes would be of no use on earth. And just that they ought even to know.” Cramer.
13. On Isa_49:24 sqq. Whether we understand by the “strong one” the devil, or the power of carnal Judaism, or political powers hostile to Christianity, it is in any case certain that the Lord will conquer the strong one in all these forms, and wrest his plunder from him. In reference to the oppressors eating their own flesh and intoxicating themselves with their own blood, it is to be remembered how all enemies of the truth must finally fall out with one another and tear each other’s flesh, and even devour one another (Jdg_7:22; 1Sa_14:20; Psalms 83). Recall the many judgments of God: Christ and unbelieving Israel (especially the contests of the zealots in the siege of Jerusalem); Nero, who was by the senate declared to be an enemy of the state; the heroes of the French Revolution, etc.
HOMILETICAL HINTS
1. On Isa_49:1-6. In times of the Church’s distress and conflict, when it seems as if the Church of the Lord must be destroyed by its enemies, this passage can be held up to the congregation as a glorious word of consolation. For what is here said primarily of the Servant of God may be so applied to the Church of the Lord to show: The grounds of comfort that assure us that the Church of Christ can never perish. 1) The Church in its beginnings was willed and prepared by the Lord (Isa_49:1); 2) It is equipped with weapons that are effective for all times (sharp sword, clean arrow=word of God, Heb_4:12); 3) It always enjoys the divine protection (shadow of the hand, quiver Isa_49:2); 4) God’s honor and the salvation of the world is its task (Isa_49:3; Isa_49:6), which, a. amid many conflicts and infirmities (Isa_49:4), yet b. in the power of God (Isa_49:5), it will at last gloriously execute (Isa_49:5-6).
2. On Isa_49:6. “The Lord Jesus in the halo of the world-mission. 1) It is a small thing for the Lord to be the consolation of Israel, He is also a light to the Gentiles; 2) It is also a small thing for the Lord to be the light to the Gentiles, He is also their salvation to the end of the earth. 3) It is a small thing for the Lord to be light and salvation to the world, He is also thy light and thy salvation.” E. Quandt.
3. On Isa_49:7. Even if the Church of Christ be often quite despised, and an object of aversion and trodden under the feet of tyrants like a slave, yet it must never forget that it is where it is for the Lord’s sake. The Lord can as little give Himself up as forsake His Church. He must be faithful to it, and so the time shall at last come when kings shall see and shall rise up, princes shall worship for the Lord’s sake.
4. On Isa_49:7-13. The salvation of God. 1) It is well founded, for it rests on the Mediator of the Covenant, Jesus Christ, the Son of God (Isa_49:8). 2) It is universal, for it consists a. in salvation from all distress (Isa_49:8-11); b. it is destined and prepared for all (Isa_49:12). 3) It is exceeding glorious (Isa_49:13). 4) But it has its appointed day, the day of salvation (Isa_49:8), and that must be waited for with patience and hope.
5. On Isa_49:14-16. The motherly love of God. 1) It hides itself at times (Isa_49:14); 2) it is founded on our being children of His body (Isa_49:15); 3) it leads all to a glorious end (Isa_49:15-16).
6. On Isa_49:17-23. This passage must be regarded in the light of Gal_4:22-31. According to that, we know that the ruined and shattered city, the desolate land, is the earthly Jerusalem, that is judged by God, whose children are given up to death and destruction. But in this Jerusalem is concealed, as the abiding kernel, that Jerusalem that is above, the free. This is the mother of us all, viz. us Christians. All out of all nations that come to Christ become children of this heavenly Jerusalem. Dead as the earthly Jerusalem is, conscious of having lost her husband and her children, Zion arises again as the heavenly Jerusalem, and is now visibly surprised to see innumerable hosts of children hasting to her, and herself the recipient of every sign of honor from the rich of this world.
7. On Isa_49:24-26. The redemption that comes by Christ is also a victory over Satan. Hence we also praise Christ as the one who has redeemed us from the power of the devil. 1) By what has He redeemed us? (He quarreled with the quarreler, and on the cross conquered the strong one, Heb_2:14-15; Eph_4:8; Col_2:14-15). 2) How far did He redeem us? (He freed us, a. from the guilt and punishment of sin; b. from the dominion of sin.) 3) To what purpose did He redeem us? (That we should experience and taste the grace of our God, Isa_49:26.)
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 1. Listen — An earnest call-word, because something of…
1. Listen — An earnest call-word, because something of importance is to be communicated.
O isles — Literally, coastlands; islands and maritime regions, generally westward from the scene of the speaker.
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From far — Gentile nations as far away as their geographic location could then have been known.
Hath called me — With evangelical expositors this pronoun “me” is the Messiah, distinctly and indisputably. Grotius, Gesenius, and the schools following them, wrench the sense into a reference to the prophet Isaiah. This sense is truly improbable, if only because the prophet has never in this wise so brought himself into the foreground before. He is the medium only of the word of God. The nearest to his being or assuming more than this, is in semblance of phraseology in chap. Isa_48:16, (where see note,) in which the decision is radically diverse to such an idea. There is no doubt at all entertained as to the speaker here being the Messiah by those who believe the Old Testament recognises its all-ruling divinity, Jehovah, to be divinity identical with the incarnate Logos of the New Testament.
The circumstantiality of the description in the context also bears out this view. See Mat_1:20-21; Luk_1:35. In a passage parallel to this, (Jer_1:5,) the reference is plainly to Jeremiah; and in another, (Isa_44:2,) as plainly to Israel. But what the speaker here says is so unique, so glorious withal, that the reference reaches far beyond the vocation or action of any single prophet or any individual man, subject to the limitations of human life or human strength. — Delitzsch. As in Isa_42:1, so here, the ideal speaker is the Messiah considered as the head of his people, and as forming with them one complex person. At the present stage of the study of Christology, it is not certain that the prophet conceived the future Church and the Head of the Church as separately individualized entities. At one time it is the spiritual Israel, or the Church, that is prominent: at another, it is the Church on its anointed mission to the Gentiles, condensed into the conception of a single person as the divine agent, or outflow of salvation to all the nations. The latter, under the legitimate designation of Messiah, seems the proper view to take here.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 1–3. The call and equipment of the Servant by…
1–3. The call and equipment of the Servant by Jehovah. The nations of the world are addressed, because the great announcement that the speaker has to make (Isa_49:6) concerns them. Although Jeremiah had already been conscious of being a “prophet to the nations” (Jer_1:5), the self-consciousness here attributed to the Servant is too great to be that of any private individual, whether prophet or teacher.
O isles] see on ch. Isa_41:1. For people render peoples (R.V.).
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the Lord hath called me (Isa_42:6 &c.) from the womb] Cf. ch. Isa_44:2; Isa_44:24, Isa_46:3, where the same metaphor is used of the beginning of the nation’s history. made mention of my name] Cf. Isa_43:1.
1–6. The Servant’s address to the nations. The passage forms the natural sequel to ch. Isa_42:1-4, and adds some fresh features to the portrait there presented. (1) The Servant, speaking now in his own name, expresses his consciousness of the mission entrusted to him by Jehovah (Isa_49:1-3). (2) He records his failure in the past, and the sense of disappointment caused in him by the apparent fruitlessness of his labour; yet his faith in his mission remains constant (Isa_49:4). (3) But now his doubts have been removed by a revelation of the great purpose for which Jehovah has raised him up; viz., to be the organ of His salvation to the ends of the earth (Isa_49:5-6).
It still remains the most probable view that Israel is here spoken of under the name of the Servant of Jehovah; although two objections are raised in addition to those suggested by Isa_42:1-4. (a) The Servant is described as one who has a history and an experience behind him, as well as a mission to fulfil. Now this experience is not that of the nation, which was conscious of no unique religious mission, and therefore had no such sense of defeat as is described in Isa_49:4. And if we say that it is not the actual but the ideal Israel that is meant, we are asked to explain how an ideal can have a history, or when the ideal Israel was born, or before whom Jehovah mentioned its name (Duhm). (b) Another difficulty is created by the fact that the Servant is here expressly distinguished from Israel when it is said that the restoration of the nation is to be effected by his activity. These objections are perhaps sufficiently met by the consideration that the ideal represented by the Servant is one that has been partially realised in the experience of the best part of the nation. Since the beginning of prophecy there had been a section of the people that had laboured for the conversion of Israel, and there were doubtless many among the exiles whose feelings of disappointment are truthfully reflected by the language put into the mouth of the Servant. There is nothing unnatural in the supposition that this party should be regarded as embodying the true genius of Israel, or that their experience should be transferred to the ideal figure by which the prophet sets forth his inspired interpretation of Israel’s history. Nor is there any great difficulty in the further thought that the ideal Servant, as represented by this minority, laboured for the reunion and upbuilding of the future Israel. This also corresponds to a fact of history, for nothing is more certain than that but for the influence of the prophetic teaching the Israelitish nationality would have perished during the Captivity. The prophet’s conception of Israel’s unique position is singularly profound as well as elevated; but it does not appear that any feature thus far introduced into the portrait of Jehovah’s Servant violates the conditions of a natural personification. (See further Introduction, pp. xxxiii f.; and Appendix, Note I.)
Ch. Isa_49:1-13. The Servant of Jehovah: His Fidelity amidst Discouragements, and the ultimate Success of His Mission
The beginning of ch. 49 seems to mark a distinct advance in the development of the prophet’s conceptions. “The controversial tone, the repeated comparisons between Jehovah and the idols, with the arguments based upon them, disappear; the prophet feels that, as regards these points, he has made his position sufficiently secure. For the same reason, allusions to Cyrus and his conquest of Babylon cease also; that, likewise, is now taken for granted” (Driver, Isaiah 2, pp. 148 f.). In the remaining discourses (ch. 49–55) the author concentrates his attention almost exclusively on his central message of consolation, and the glorious future in store for Israel. His treatment of this theme moves along two lines, which alternate with each other as the manner of the writer is. The first is represented by the idea of the Servant of the Lord, the second by the figure of Zion, both being personifications, although in very different senses, of the people of Israel (see on ch. Isa_40:1). The Servant represents the ideal Israel as Jehovah’s instrument, first, in restoring the unity and prosperity of the nation, and second, in extending the knowledge of God to the nations of the world. Zion, on the other hand, is the representative of Israel in its passive aspect, as deserted and humbled in the present, but at the same time the recipient of the blessings which accrue from the work and sufferings of the Lord’s Servant.
The opening section consists of:—
i. A new description of the mission and experience of the Servant of Jehovah (cf. ch. Isa_42:1-4) in the form of an address by the Servant to the nations (Isa_49:1-6). These verses form the second of the four “Servant-passages” which occur in the book.
ii. A promise of speedy restoration to Israel, obviously based on the preceding description (Isa_49:7-12).
iii. A hymn of gratitude to Jehovah, called forth as usual by the prospect of deliverance (Isa_49:13).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (1) Listen, O isles . . .—The argument against…
XLIX.
(1) Listen, O isles . . .—The argument against idolatry has been brought to its close, and a new section opens, and with it there is a new speaker, the mysterious “Servant of the Lord,” (Isa_42:1), at once identified with Israel (Isa_49:3), in fulfilling its ideal, and yet distinguished from it, as its Restorer and Redeemer. “Isles” as before stand vaguely for “far off countries.” The invitation is addressed to the heathen far and wide.
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The Lord hath called me from the womb.—The words indicate a predestined vocation. (Comp. Jer_1:5; Luk_1:15; Luk_1:41; Gal_1:15.) Admitting the thought of a Divine order working in human history, the idea of such a vocation follows in inevitable sequence.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain The connection of the present section is especially with…
The connection of the present section is especially with Isa_42:1-7, where the mission of the Servant of Jehovah was first announced. That mission was there described with extreme brevity. It has now to be fully set forth, for the instruction, consolation, and comfort of all Israel, which is represented as sunk in despondency, deeming itself forgotten of God and forsaken by him (vers. 13, 14). In the present chapter Jehovah"s attestation of his Servant"s mission is set forth (vers. 1-12), and Zion is comforted in her despondency (vers. 13-26).
Vers. 1-12. JEHOVAH"S ATTESTATION OF HIS SERVANT"S MISSION. Jehovah called his Servant from the womb; mentioned him by name; made his mouth a sharp sword; held him in his hand; caused him to be a polished weapon; appointed him his Servant; assured him of a right and a recompense; appointed him, not only to restore and recover Israel, but to be a Light to the Gentiles, and to give salvation to the ends of the world (vers. 1-6); chose him (ver. 7); will help him (ver. 8); through him will both deliver the captive everywhere (ver. 9), and cause joy to break out in every part of heaven and earth (vers. 11-13). It is quite impossible that these things can be said of aught but a person, or of any person other than him in whom all the nations of the earth were to be blessed. (Gen_22:18)
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Listen, O isles. (comp. Isa_41:1 Isa_42:1, Isa_42:4, Isa_42:6) Since the beginning of ch. 43. Israel alone has been addressed. Now that the mission of the Servant of Jehovah is to be treated of, all the world must be summoned to hear, for all the world is directly interested. Ye people; rather, ye peoples, or ye nations. The Lord hath called me from the womb. Isaiah could not have said this of himself, for his "call" took place when he was of mature age. But Christ was designated for his office from the womb. (Luk_1:31-33) He was also still "in the womb of his mother" when the name of Jesus was given to him. (Mat_1:21,lu Mat 1:31)
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON Vers. 1-13. Jehovah and his Servant.
The Servant of Jehovah is wearied with the obstinacy of the Israelites, and turns to the lands afar off, that he may unfold to them his high mission and its purport. The offer of salvation is to be extended to the heathen world.
I HIS CALL. From his very birth he has been destined as a missionary to the heathen world. (cf. Isa_1:5 Gal_1:15 Luk_1:31) The emphasis is on the fact. He was not self-called, and there was no presumption on his part. There is all the difference in the world between calling one"s self missionary, or apostle, or minister, and feeling that "God has made mention of one"s name.
II HIS ENDOWMENT. His mouth has been made a sharp sword; a vehicle for that Word which is elsewhere compared to a sharp and two-edged sword, to pierce the conscience, to overcome the proud and the stubborn. (cf. Isa_11:4 Isa_51:16 Heb_4:12 Eph_6:17 Rev_1:16 Rev_19:15. See also, for the pungency of eloquence, Ecc_12:11) It is a lesson: pointless speech is no speech for the minister of God. We do not speak to "gain time," but to gain hearts. In some respects we may be compared to marksmen. In Gentile poets the like figures occur of the sword or the arrow. "His powerful speech Pierced the heater"s soul, and left behind, Deep in his bosom, its keen point infixt. Say through what paths of liquid air Our arrows shall we throw? (Pind., "Ol." 2, 160.)
And so with the apostolic preaching. They told the world in plain terms "that he who believed should be saved, and that he who believed not should be damned." "This was the dialect which pierced the conscience, and made the hearers cry out, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" It tickled not the ear, but sank into the heart; and when men came from such sermons, they never commended the preacher for his taking voice or gesture, for the fineness of such a simile or the quaintness of such a sentence, but spoke like men conquered with the overpowering force of truth." The Servant of God is also compared to a "polished shaft". (cf. Jer_51:11) His words penetrate easily, because natural, familiar, and not above the capacity of the hearer. "Nothing is more preposterous than for those who profess to aim at men"s hearts to shoot over their heads" (South).
III HIS DEARNESS TO GOD. This polished shaft is covered in the quiver of God. The Almighty takes care of his tools, as every good workman does. Through Israel as his instrument, he designs to manifest his glory. "His Servant will become the Head of a regenerated and expanded Israel, which Jehovah will hold forth to the universe as his fairest prize" (Cheyne). This sense of being related to God and his purposes is the source of the purest consolation. It is true the Servant of God is tempted to despondency, as in the typical case of Elijah in the wilderness. The "flesh is weak." On the other hand, just when he is weak, then is the Servant of God strong. The cry of seeming despair in Psa_22:1 is absorbed in the jubilant exultation of the singer at the close, in the prospect of the extension of the kingdom. (cf. Mat_27:46) So here, after the melancholy outburst, "I have laboured in vain," etc., the Servant of Jehovah "gives the lie to all delusive appearances," assured that his recompense is with God. The Servant of God has his rights founded on the nature of God himself and on his covenant. The missionary of the great King has a right to be protected, and to expect submission to his message. "The mention of recompense shows that "Servant" here has a special meaning of its own. A slave can have no recompense" (Cheyne). He will have a "portion among the great". (Isa_53:10, Isa_53:12) And what is the great "recompense of the reward"? The noblest that can be thought of to "bring back Jacob," to "gather Israel," and still more, to be the Light of the nations, to be the Instrument of Jehovah"s salvation unto the earth"s end. It is natural, it is noble, it is Christian, to have respect to such a recompense. The quality of life"s rewards is the main throe to be considered. There can be no contradiction between the doctrines of grace and the hopes of reward, if that reward be conceived as, first and last. consisting in the favour, the friendship, the enployment of the righteous and merciful Governor of the world.
IV GLIMPSES OF THE GREAT REWARD. Already faith, revived in the breast of Jehovah"s Servant, is encouraged by large views of the future.
1. His promised honours. He is now heartily despised by man; but the "God of Israel," the Redeemer and Avenger, saith that he stroll in his future fortunes be the Representative of Israel"s glories. He is now under the sway of great despots, heathen lords. The time shall come when kings shall rise up to do him homage, and princes shall-bow down before him; for behind him is Jehovah himself, the faithful Covenant-keeper, who has chosen, and therefore will support his Servant.
2. His mediatorial office. When the season of Providence has come, the Servant shall not only be helped and saved, but shall become the Source of salvation to others. (cf. Psa_22:23-27) He shall raise up the ruined land; he shall assign to the different families the heritages belonging to them; he shall say to the captive Jews, "Go forth!" and they shall return, like a well-shepherded flock, finding pasture everywhere on the way. They shall not be afflicted by the burning sun nor by the illusive mirage. Led by refreshing springs, and finding a highway through the mountains, they shall come from all quarters to the wished-for end of their pilgrimage. The description may be taken as an allegory of life"s pilgrimage. J.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON Vers. 1-4. The claim, the confession, and the consolation of the Servant of God.
We may treat this passage either historically or practically. We look at it
I IN ITS REFERENCE TO JESUS CHRIST. He was, indeed, an Israel, a Prince with God, as never Jacob was. He was truly a Servant of Jehovah, doing his work as never prophet or nation did before. These words are most appropriate on his lips.
1. He claimed the attention of mankind. He said, in other words and ways, "Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far." He said that "every one that was of the truth" would hear his words; that he would draw all men unto him. He summoned the weary hearts of men everywhere to come and find rest in him and in his service; he offered himself to mankind as the Light of the world, as the Bread of life, etc. He had the most penetrating truth to utter. (Isa_49:2; see Joh_6:63)
2. He compressed a temporary, outward failure. He had to acknowledge that the men of social standing and of ecclesiastical position did not believe in him; that many of his disciples fell away from him in the time of difficulty and trial; that he was left "alone.
3. He found great consolation in God.
(1) In the consciousness that the Eternal Father called him to his work (ver. 1). The thought that "the Father had sent him" was his continual refuge:
(2) In the assurance that the Father was with him, encompassing him with his protecting love. (ver. 2; and see Mat_26:53)
(3) In the confident belief that the future would justify his action and his words. He knew that the time would come when God would be glorified through his life and death. (see Joh_12:24 Joh_17:4)
(4) In the unfaltering conviction that his work would receive a Divine reward in his own exaltation (ver. 4).
II IN ITS APPLICATION TO OURSELVES.
1. We, as true teachers, make our claim. We confidently believe that we have something to say which is worth the world"s attention; which is fitted to penetrate, like a sharp sword, the thoughts, the purposes, the convictions, of mankind; which will give light to the understanding, peace to the conscience, nobility to the character, brightness and beauty to the life, of all who will listen and learn.
2. We have to make our confession of defeat to acknowledge, often, that we have "laboured in vain (see Isa_53:1) The truth we preach, or teach, or print, does not penetrate; it is like the seed which falls on stony ground it yields no fruit. Even the influence of our lives, and even the pleadings of our soul with God in earnest prayer, sometimes seem to be unavailing.
3. We find our consolation in God. In the conviction that he has called us to do the work in which we are occupied; that he is surrounding us with his Divine protection and inspiring us by his upholding Spirit; that God will grant increase to our toil in the distant if not in the near future; that he will bestow on us a full reward when the hour of blessed recompense arrives. C.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Listen, O isles, unto Me
Isa_49:1-6
Listen, O isles, unto Me
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A forecast of the universal religion
In the previous chapters we find very glorious things spoken of the deliverance of the Jews from Babylon.
But in this chapter we seem to commence a new departure, to rise to a higher strain, and to launch out into broader and grander predictions. A larger audience is invoked--Listen, O isles, unto Me. A greater than the prophet is the speaker--The Lord hath called me from the womb, &c. And the calling of the Gentiles to a share in the blessings of the greater redemption is clearly indicated. I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be My salvation unto the end of the earth. (D. Howell, B. D.)
The ideal servant of Jehovah
Here, not only does the language describe apparently the acts of an individual person, but the servant is expressly distinguished from the historic nation; and part of the servants office is to consist in the restoration of the historic nation, and (Isa_49:8) the re-allotment of its desolated land. At the same time, the servant is still in some sense Israel; for the term is directly applied to Him (Isa_49:3). . . Israel, from this point of view, is delineated by [the prophet] as an ideal personality, and projected upon the future as a figure displaying the most genuine characteristics of the nation, and realising them in action with an intensity and clearness of aim which the historic Israel had never even remotely attained. It is a great ideal creation which the prophet constructs, a transfigured reflection of the historic people, a figure conscious of the colossal task allotted to it, but impeded by no moral slackness, or other deficient y, from undertaking it. And so vividly is this wonderful creation a figure present to his imagination, that it exhibits all the concrete traits of an individual person. (Prof. S. R. Driver, D. D.)
The servant of Jehovah
The servant of Jehovah is the kernel of the kernel of Israel, Israels inmost centre, Israels highest head. (F. Delitzsch, D. D.)
The speaker
Who is this that speaks in the Hebrew tongue, and presumes to address the world as his audience? We had thought the Jew-speech too exclusive, too conservative, too intolerant of strangers, to care to make itself heard beyond the limits of Judaism. Whence this sudden interest in the great family of man? All! these are the words of the Messiah, the ideal Jew; speaking in the name of the elect race, and representing its genius, not as warped by human prejudice, but as God intended it to be. He said unto me, Thou art My servant; Israel, in whom I will be glorified. There can be no doubt that this is the true way of considering these noble words. They were expressly referred to Jesus Christ by His greatest apostle on one of the most memorable occasions in his career Act_13:47). But, it may be asked, how can words, so evidently addressed to Israel, be appropriated, with equal truth, to Jesus Christ? It is sufficient to say that He was the epitome and personification of all that was-noblest and divinest in Judaism. When, in spite of all that they had suffered in their exile, they for a second time failed to realise or fulfil their great mission to the world; when under the reign of Pharisee and Scribe they settled down into a nation of legalists, casuists, and hair-splitting ritualists--He assumed the responsibilities which they had evaded, and fulfilled them by the Gospel He spoke and the Church He formed. In the mission of Jesus, the heart of Judaism unfolded itself. What He was and did, the whole nation ought to have been and done. As the white flower on the stalk, He revealed the essential nature of the root. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
A polished shaft
We are justified in referring this paragraph to the Lord Jesus, as the ideal Servant of God. And we may get some useful teaching as to the conditions of the loftiest and best service which, following His steps, we may render to His Father and our Father.
I. THE QUALIFICATIONS OF THE IDEAL SERVANT.
1. A holy motherhood. The Lord hath called me from the womb. The greatest and best of men have confessed their indebtedness to their mothers; and not a few have, without doubt, enshrined in their character, and wrought out in their life, inspirations which had thrilled their mothers natures from early girlhood. It is from their mothers that men get their souls. To make a man, God begins with his mother. Few of us realise the immense importance attaching to the education of girls.
2. Incisive speech. He hath made My mouth like a sharp sword. Speech is the most God-like faculty in man. Christ did not scruple to be called the word or speech of God. This regal faculty is Gods chosen organ for announcing and establishing His kingdom over the earth. Our mouth must be surrendered to God, that He may implant there the sharp two-edged sword that proceeds from His own lips (Rev_1:16).
3. Seclusion. In the shadow. We must all go there sometimes. The photograph of Gods face can only be fixed in the dark chamber.
4. Freed from rust. A polished shaft. Weapons of war soon deteriorate. Rust can best be removed by sand-paper or the file. Similarly we must be kept bright and clean. For this purpose God uses the fret of daily life, the chafe of small annoyances, the wear and tear of irritating tempers and vexing circumstances.
II. APPARENT FAILURE (Isa_49:4). This heart-break seems inevitable to Gods most gifted and useful servants. It is in part the result of nervous overstrain, e.g. Elijah (1Ki_19:1-21.). But in part it results from the expanding compassion of the soul. There are three sources of consolation.
1. That failure will not forfeit the bright smile of the Masters welcome nor the reward of His judgment-seat. He judges righteously; and rewards, not according to results, but to faithfulness.
2. The soul leans more heavily upon God. My God is become My strength (Isa_49:5).
3. We turn to prayer. How sweetly God refers to this, saying, In an acceptable time have I answered thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee (Isa_49:8). Thus God deals with us all. He is compelled to take us to the back side of the desert, where we sit face to face with the wreck of our fairest hopes. There He teaches us, as He only can, weaning us from creature-confidence, and taking pride from our hearts.
III. ULTIMATE SUCCESS. When Jesus died, failure seemed written across His lifework. But that very Cross, which man deemed His supreme disgrace and dethronement, has become the stepping-stone of universal dominion. Thus it may be with some. They are passing through times of barrenness, and disappointment, and suffering. But let them remember that the Lord is faithful (Isa_49:7). He will not suffer one word to fail, one seed to be lost, one effort to prove abortive, one life to be wasted. (F. B.Meyer, B. A.)
Service; call and qualifications
I. THE CALL TO THE SERVICE APPOINTED US OF GOD. The Lord hath called me from the womb.
1. To every human life that enters the world there is a special call, and a distinct sphere of duty. Jeremiah was called from his birth (Jer_1:5), and so was St. Paul (Gal_1:15). These are types, not exceptions. Their call teaches us that every human life is a real and distinct entity, a thing complete in itself, as much so to the eye of God as the grandest object in any sphere of created life. Behind all secondary causes there is a design and a purpose to each separate existence, which gives it a dignity, and makes it a necessity in the government of God. This truth is not one easy to realise. An individual is so insignificant a thing among the millions inhabiting the surface of this globe, while the globe itself is only as a grain of sand on the seashore beside countless other worlds, that it is with no mock modesty we ask, What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that Thou so regardest him? This is true, but it is none the less true that each individual life has a meaning and a mission in the plan and purpose of God; and to realise this is no unimportant element in fitness for service. Two opposite errors there are which have gone far to ruin countless human lives. One is the overestimating and the other the underestimating our importance as individuals.
2. The question naturally arises, how is the Divine call to be discerned? The natural predilections of a man may, to some extent, be taken as pointing the direction in which his sphere of action lies. There are, besides, his aptitudes, his special endowments. There is, also, the concurrent direction of circumstances. Nor should a light stress be laid on the opinions of those whose experience of life, and unbiassed judgment, qualify them to give sound advice. Nor again, should the conscious promptings of some power within us, compelling us to face, perhaps, an unwelcome prospect, be ignored. But at no crisis in life is humble, submissive, patient, trustful waiting upon God of greater importance than when we are responding, definitely and finally, to the call of circumstances, of inclinations, and of qualifications in the choice of lifes sphere of duty. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not to thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths. And when the call comes, it is at our peril that we hesitate to obey it.
II. THE QUALIFICATIONS FOR IT (verse 2). This was emphatically true of our Lord Jesus Christ. When, in the fulness of time, He was revealed to the world, His own words were, I came not to bring peace, but a sword. Moreover, in the apocalyptic vision, the description given of His ascended and enthroned Majesty is that of one out of whose mouth there went a sharp two-edged sword. The same figure is also applied to the third person of the Holy Trinity, of whom it is said, that the sword of the Spirit is the Word of God--and never should it be forgotten, that Bible truth, in mind, and heart, and life, and at ready command for use, is pre-eminently the instrument of power for effective service. Now the sword is the symbol of authority, as well as of war, and is intended to vindicate the true as well as to slay the false. For this we need, not only a sword, but a sharp sword. There are great and vital interests to be vindicated, the interests of truth, and of humanity. We also need a sword, and a sharp sword, to cut down errors and abuses. But for effective service we need not only to be as sharp swords, but also as polished shafts. A polished shaft is a symbol of cultivated gifts, of trained endowments, and of aggressive power at its best. The call and the gifts come from God; while the response to that call, and the due cultivation and employment of the gifts depend upon man, and if he neglects to do his part, what can his life be but a disastrous failure? Definiteness of purpose is an essential condition of success in earthly affairs. Moreover, in all true service there must be the element of sacrifice--not merely the sacrifice of time, thought, pleasure, profit, preference,but, above all, of self. One more element in fitness for service must I mention, viz., that moral chivalry which goes by the name of disinterestedness. (D. Howell, B. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain Isa_49:1-9; Isa_50:4-11
CHAPTER XIX
PROPHET AND MARTYR
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Isa_49:1-9; Isa_50:4-11
THE second great passage upon the Servant of the Lord is Isa_49:1-9, and the third is Isa_50:4-11. In both of these the servant himself speaks; in both he speaks as prophet; while in the second he tells us that his prophecy leads him on to martyrdom. The two passages may, therefore, be taken together.
Before we examine their contents, let us look for a moment at the way in which they are woven into the rest of the text. As we have seen, chapter 49 begins a new section of the prophecy, in so far that with it the prophet leaves Babylon and Cyrus behind him, and ceases to speak of the contrast between God and the idols. But, still, chapter 49 is linked to chapter 48. In leading up to its climax, -the summons to Israel to depart from Babylon, - chapter 48, does not forget that Israel is delivered from Babylon in order to be the Servant of Jehovah: "say ye, Jehovah hath redeemed His Servant Jacob." It is this service, which chapter 49 carries forward from the opportunity, and the call, to go forth from Babylon, with which chapter 48, closes. That opportunity, though real, does not at all mean that Israels redemption is complete. There were many moral reasons which prevented the whole nation from taking full advantage of the political freedom offered them by Cyrus. Although the true Israel, that part of the nation which has the conscience of service, has shaken itself free from the temptation as well as from the tyranny of Babel, and now sees the world before it as the theatre of its operations, - Isa_49:1, "Hearken, ye isles, unto Me; and listen, ye peoples, from far,"-it has still, before it can address itself to that universal mission, to exhort, rouse, and extricate the rest of its nation, "saying to the bounden, Go forth; and to, them that are in darkness, Show yourselves" (Isa_49:9). Chapter 49, therefore, is the natural development of chapter 48. There is certainly a little interval of time implied between the two-the time during which it became apparent that the opportunity to leave Babylon would not be taken advantage of by all Israel, and that the nation's redemption must be a moral as well as a political one. But Isa_49:1-9 comes out of chapters 40-48, and it is impossible to believe that in it we are not still under the influence of the same author.
A similar coherence is apparent if we look to the other end of Isa_49:1-9. Here it is evident that Jehovahs commission to the Servant concludes with Isa_49:9 a; but then its closing words, "Say to the bound, Go forth; to them that are in darkness, Show yourselves," start fresh thoughts about the redeemed on their way back (Isa_49:9-13); and these thoughts naturally lead on to a picture of Jerusalem imagining herself forsaken, and amazed by the appearance of so many of her children before her (Isa_49:14-21). Promises to her and to them follow in due sequence down to Isa_50:3, when the Servant resumes his soliloquy about himself, but abruptly, and in no apparent connection with what immediately precedes. His soliloquy ceases in Isa_50:9, and another voice, probably that of God Himself, urges obedience to the Servant (Isa_50:10), and judgment to the sinners in Israel (Isa_50:11); and chapter 51 is an address to the spiritual Israel, and to Jerusalem, with thoughts much the same as those uttered in Isa_49:14-26; Isa_50:1-3.
In face of these facts, and taking into consideration the dramatic form in which the whole prophecy is cast, we find ourselves unable to say that there is anything which is incompatible with a single authorship, or which makes it impossible for the two passages on the Servant to have originally sprung, each at the place at which it now stands, from the progress of the prophets thoughts.
Babylon is left behind, and the way of the Lord is prepared in the desert. Israel have once more the title-deeds to their own land, and Zion looms in sight. Yet with their face to home, and their heart upon freedom, the voice of this people, or at least of the better half of this people, rises first upon the conscience of their duty to the rest of mankind.
Hearken, O Isles, unto Me;
And listen, O Peoples, from far!
From the womb Jehovah hath called me,
From my mothers midst mentioned my name.
And He set my mouth like a sharp sword,
In the shadow of His hand did He hide me;
Yea, He made me a pointed arrow.
In His quiver He laid me in store,
And said to me, My Servant art thou,
Israel, in whom I shall break into glory.
And I-I said, In vain have I laboured,
For waste and for wind my strength have I spent!
Surely my rights with Jehovah,
And the meed of my work with my God!
But now, saith Jehovah-
Moulding me from the womb to be His own Servant,
To turn again Jacob towards Him,
And that Israel be not destroyed.
And I am of honour in the eyes of Jehovah,
And my God is my strength.
And He saith, Tis too light for thy being My Servant,
To raise up the tribes of Jacob,
Or gather the survivors of Israel.
So I will set thee a light of the Nations,
To be My salvation to the end of the earth.
Thus saith Jehovah, Israels Redeemer, his Holy,
To this mockery of a life, abhorrence of a nation,
Servant of tyrants,
Kings shall behold and shall stand up,
Princes shall also do homage,
For the sake of Jehovah, who shows Himself faithful,
Holy of Israel, and thou art His chosen.
Thus saith Jehovah,
In a favourable time I have given thee answer,
In the day of salvation have helped thee,
To keep thee, to give thee for covenant of the people,
To raise up the land,
To give back the heirs to the desolate heirdoms,
Saying to the bounden,
Go forth!
To them that are in darkness,
Appear!
"Who is so blind as not to perceive that the consciousness of the Servant here is only a mirror in which the history of Israel is reflected-first, in its original call and design that Jehovah should be glorified in it; second, in the long delay and apparent failure of the design, and, thirdly, as the design is now in the present juncture of circumstances and concurrence of events about to be realised?" Yes: but it is Israels calling, native insufficiency, and present duty, as owned by only a part of the people, which, though named by the national name (Isa_49:3), feels itself standing over against the bulk of the nation, whose redemption it is called to work out (Isa_49:8-9) before it takes up its worldwide service. We have already sufficiently discussed this distinction of the Servant from the whole nation, as well as the distinction of the moral work he has to effect in Israels redemption from Babylon, from the political enfranchisement of the nation, which is the work of Cyrus. Let us, then, at once address ourselves to the main features of his consciousness of his mission to mankind. We shall find these features to be three. The Servant owns for his chief end the glory of God; and he feels that he has to glorify God in two ways-by Speech, and by Suffering.
I. THE SERVANT GLORIFIES GOD
He did say to me, My servant art thou,
Israel, in whom I shall break into glory.
The Hebrew verb, which the Authorised Version translates "will be glorified," means to "burst forth, become visible," break like the dawn into splendour. This is the scriptural sense of Glory. Glory is God become visible. As we put it in Book I, glory is the expression of holiness, as beauty is the expression of health. But, in order to become visible, the Absolute and Holy God needs mortal man. We have felt something like a paradox in these prophecies. Nowhere else is God lifted up so absolute, and so able to effect all by His mere will and word; yet nowhere else are a human agency and service so strongly asserted as indispensable to the Divine purpose. But this is no more a paradox than the fact that physical light needs some material in which to become visible. Light is never revealed of itself, but always when shining from, or burning in, something else. To be seen, light requires a surface that will reflect, or a substance that will consume. And so, to "break into glory," God requires something outside Himself. A responsive portion of humanity is indispensable to Him, -a people who will reflect Him and spend itself for Him. Man is the mirror and the wick of the Divine. God is glorified in mans character and witness, -these are His mirror; and in mans sacrifice, -that is His wick.
And so we meet again the central truth of our prophecy, that in order to serve men it is necessary first to be used of God. We must place ourselves at the disposal of the Divine, we must let God shine on us and kindle us, and break into glory through us, before we can hope either to comfort mankind or to set them on fire. It is true that ideas very different from this prevail among the ranks of the servants of humanity in our day. A large part of our most serious literature professes for its main bearing this conclusion, that the fellowship between man and man, which has been the principle of development, social and moral, is not dependent upon conceptions of what is not man, and that the idea of God, so far as it has been a high spiritual influence, is the ideal of a goodness entirely human." But such theories are possible only so long as the still unexhausted influence of religion upon society continues to supply human nature, directly or indirectly, with a virtue which may be plausibly claimed for human natures own original product. Let religion be entirely withdrawn, and the question, Whence comes virtue? will be answered by virtue ceasing to come at all. The savage imagines that it is the burning-glass which sets the bush on fire, and as long as the sun is shining it may be impossible to convince him that he is wrong; but a dull day will teach even his mind that the glass can do nothing without the sun upon it. And so, though men may talk glibly against God, while society still shines in the light of His countenance, yet, if they and society resolutely withdraw themselves from that light, they shall certainly lose every heat and lustre of the spirit which is indispensable for social service. On this the ancient Greek was at one with the ancient Hebrew. "Enthusiasm" is just "God breaking into glory" through a human life. Here lies the secret of the buoyancy and "freshness of the earlier world," whether pagan or Hebrew, and by this may be understood the depression and pessimism which infect modern society. They had God in their blood, and we are anemic. "But I, I said, I have laboured in vain; for waste and for wind have I spent my strength." We must all say that, if our last word is "our strength." But let this not be our last word. Let us remember the sufficient answer: "Surely my right is with the Lord, and the meed of my work with my God. We are set, not in our own strength or for our own advantage, but with the hand of God upon us, and that the Divine life may "break into glory though our life. Carlyle said, and it was almost his last testimony," The older I grow, and I am now on the brink of eternity, the more comes back to me the first sentence of the catechism, which I learned when a child, and the fuller does its meaning grow "What is the chief end of man? Mans chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever."
It was said above, that, as light breaks to visibleness either from a mirror or a wick, so God "breaks to glory" either from the witness of men, -that is His mirror, -or from their sacrifice-that is His wick. Of both of these ways of glorifying God is the Servant conscious. His service is Speech and Sacrifice, Prophecy and Martyrdom.
II. THE SERVANT AS PROPHET
Concerning his service of Speech, the Servant speaks in these two passages - Isa_49:2 and Isa_50:4-5 :
He set my mouth like a sharp sword,
In the shadow of His hand did He hide me,
And made me a pointed arrow;
In his quiver He laid me in store.
My Lord Jehovah hath given me
The tongue of the learners,
To know how to succour the weary with words.
He wakeneth morning by morning,
He wakeneth mine ear
To hear as the learners.
My Lord Jehovah hath opened mine ear.
I was not rebellious,
Nor turned away backward.
At the bidding of our latest prophet we have become suspicious of the power of speech, and the goddess of eloquence walks, as it were, under surveillance among us. Carlyle reiterated, "All speech and rumour is short-lived, foolish, untrue. Genuine work alone is eternal. The talent of silence is our fundamental one. The dumb nations are the builders of the world." Under such doctrine some have grown intolerant of words, and the ideal of today tends to become the practical man rather than the prophet. Yet, as somebody has said, Carlyle makes us dissatisfied with preaching only by preaching himself; and you have but to read him with attention to discover that his disgust with human speech is consistent with an immense reverence for the voice as an instrument of service to humanity. "The tongue of man," he says, "is a sacred organ. Man himself is definable in philosophy as an Incarnate Word; the Word not there, you have no man there either, but a Phantasm instead."
Let us examine our own experience upon the merits of this debate between Silence and Speech in the service of man. Though beginning low, it will help us quickly to the height of the experience of the Prophet Nation, who, with naught else for the world but the voice that was in them, accomplished the greatest service that the world has ever received from her children.
One thing is certain, -that Speech has not the monopoly of falsehood or of any other presumptuous sin. Silence does not only mean ignorance, -by some supposed to be the heaviest sin of which Silence can be guilty, -but many things far worse than ignorance, like unreadiness, and cowardice, and falsehood, and treason, and base consent to what is evil. No man can look back on his past life, however lowly or limited his sphere may have been, and fail to see that not once or twice his supreme duty was a word, and his guilt was not to have spoken it. We all have known the shame of being straitened in prayer or praise; the shame of being, through our cowardice to bear witness, traitors to the truth; the shame of being too timid to say No to the tempter, and speak out the brave reasons of which the heart was full; the shame of finding ourselves incapable of uttering the word that would have kept a soul from taking the wrong turning in life; the shame, when truth, clearness, and authority were required from us, of being able only to stammer or to mince or to rant. To have been dumb before the ignorant or the dying, before a questioning child or before the tempter, -this, the frequent experience of our common life, is enough to justify Carlyle when he said, "If the Word is not there, you have no man there either, but a Phantasm instead."
Now, when we look within ourselves we see the reason of this. We perceive that the one fact, which amid the mystery and chaos of our inner life gives certainty and light, is a fact which is a Voice. Our nature may be wrecked and dissipated, but conscience is always left; or in ignorance and gloom, but conscience is always audible: or with all the faculties strong and assertive, yet conscience is still unquestionably queen, -and conscience is a Voice. It is a still, small voice, which is the surest thing in man, and the noblest; which makes all the difference in his life; which lies at the back and beginning of all his character and conduct. And the most indispensable, and the grandest service, therefore, which a man can do his fellow-men, is to get back to this voice, and make himself its mouthpiece and its prophet. What work is possible till the word be spoken? Did ever order come to social life before there was first uttered the command, in which men felt the articulation and enforcement of the ultimate voice within themselves? Discipline and instruction and energy have not appeared without speech going before them. Knowledge and faith and hope do not dawn of themselves; they travel, as light issued forth in the beginning, upon the pulses of the speaking breath.
It was the greatness of Israel to be conscious of their call as a nation to this fundamental service of humanity. Believing in the Word of God as the original source of all things, -"In the beginning God said, Let there be light; and there was light,"-they had the conscience that, as it had been in the physical world, so must it always be in the moral. Men were to be served and their lives to be moulded by the Word. God was to be glorified by letting His Word break through the life and the lips of men. There was in the Old Testament, it is true, a triple ideal of manhood: "prophet, priest, and king." But the greatest of these was the prophet, for king and priest had to be prophets too. Eloquence was a royal virtue, -with persuasion, the power of command, and swift judgment. Among the seven spirits of the Lord which Isaiah sees descending in the King-to-Come is the spirit of counsel, and he afterwards adds of the King: "He shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked." Similarly, the priests had originally been the ministers, not so much of sacrifice, as of the revealed Word of God. And now the new and high ideal of priesthood, the laying down of ones life a sacrifice for God and for the people, was not the mere imitation of the animal victim required by the priestly law, but was the natural development of the prophetic experience. It was (as we shall presently see) the prophet, who, in his inevitable sufferings on behalf of the truth he uttered, developed that consciousness of sacrifice for others, in which the loftiest priesthood consists. Prophecy, therefore, the Service of Men by the Word of God, was for Israel the highest and most essential of all service. It was the individuals and it was the nations ideal. As there was no true king and no true priest, so there was no true man, without the Word. "Would to God," said Moses, "that all the Lords people were prophets." And in our prophecy Israel exclaims: "Listen, O Isles, unto me; and hearken, ye peoples from far. He hath made my mouth like a sharp sword, in the shadow of His hand hath He hid me."
At first it seems a forlorn hope thus to challenge the attention of the world in a dialect of one of its most obscure provinces, -a dialect, too, that was already ceasing to be spoken even there. But the fact only serves more forcibly to emphasise the belief of these prophets, that the word committed to what they must have known to be a dying language was the Word of God Himself, -bound to render immortal the tongue in which it was spoken, bound to re-echo to the ends of the earth, bound to touch the conscience and commend itself to the reason of universal humanity. We have already seen, and will again see, how our prophet insists upon the creative and omnipotent power of Gods Word; so we need not dwell longer on this instance of his faith. Let us look rather at what he expresses as Israels preparation for the teaching of it.
To him the discipline and qualification of the prophet nation-and that means of every Servant of God-in the high office of the Word, are threefold.
1. First, he lays down the supreme condition of Prophecy, that behind the Voice there must be the Life. Before he speaks of his gifts of Speech, the Servant emphasises his peculiar and consecrated life. "From the womb Jehovah called me, from my mothers midst mentioned my name." Now, as we all know, Israels message to the world was largely Israels life. The Old Testament is not a set of dogmas, nor a philosophy, nor a vision; but a history, the record of a providence, the testimony of experience, the utterances called forth by historical occasions from a life conscious of the purpose for which God has called it and set it apart through the ages. But these words, which the prophet nation uses, were first used of an individual prophet. Like so much else in "Second Isaiah," we find a suggestion of them in the call of Jeremiah. "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee, and before thou camest forth from the womb I consecrated thee: I have appointed thee a prophet unto the nations." {Jer_1:5} A prophet is not a voice only. A prophet is a life behind a voice. He who would speak for God must have lived for God. According to the profound insight of the Old Testament, speech is not the expression of a few thoughts of a man, but the utterance of his whole life. A man blossoms through his lips; and no man is a prophet, whose word is not the virtue and the flower of a gracious and a consecrated life.
2. The second discipline of the prophet is the Art of Speech. "He hath made my mouth like a sharp sword, in the shadow of His hand hath He hid me: He hath made me a polished shaft, in His quiver hath He laid me in store." It is very evident that in these words the Servant does not only recount technical qualifications, but a moral discipline as well. The edge and brilliance of his speech are stated as the effect of solitude, but of a solitude that was at the same time a nearness to God. Now solitude is a great school of eloquence. In speaking of the Semitic race, of which Israel was part, we pointed out that, prophet-race of the world as it has proved, it sprang from the desert, and nearly all its branches have inherited the deserts clear and august style of speech; for, in the leisure and serene air of the desert, men speak as they speak nowhere else. But Israel speaks of a solitude that was the shadow of Gods hand and the fastness of Gods quiver; a seclusion which, to the deserts art of eloquence, added a special inspiration by God, and a special concentration upon His main purpose in the world. The desert sword felt the grasp of God; He laid the Semitic shaft in store for a unique end.
3. But in Isa_50:4-5, the Servant unfolds the most beautiful and true understanding of the Secret of Prophecy that ever was unfolded in any literature, -worth quoting again by us, if so we may get it by heart.
My Lord Jehovah hath given me
The tongue of the learners,
To know how to succour the weary with words.
He wakeneth, morning by morning
He wakeneth mine ear
To hear as the learners.
My Lord Jehovah hath opened mine ear,
I was not rebellious,
Nor turned away backward.
The prophet, say these beautiful lines, learns his speech, as the little child does, by listening. Grace is poured upon the lips through the open ear. It is the lesson of our Lords Ephphatha. When He took the deaf man with the impediment in his speech aside from the multitude privately, He said unto him, not Be loosed, but, "Be opened; and" first "his ears were opened, and" then the "bond of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain." To speak, then, the prophet must listen; but mark to what he must listen! The secret of his eloquence lies not in the hearing of thunder, nor in the knowledge of mysteries, but in a daily wakefulness to the lessons and experience of common life. "Morning by morning He openeth mine ear." This is very characteristic of Hebrew prophecy and Hebrew wisdom, which listened for the truth of God in the voices of each day, drew their parables from things the rising sun lights up to every wakeful eye, and were, in the bulk of their doctrine, the virtues, needed day by day, of justice, temperance, and mercy, and in the bulk of their judgments the results of everyday observation and experience. The strength of the Old Testament lies in this its realism, its daily vigilance and experience of life. It is its contact with life-the life, not of the yesterday of its speakers, but of their today-that makes its voice so fresh and helpful to the weary. He whose ear is daily open to the music of his current life will always find himself in possession of words that refresh and stimulate.
But serviceable speech needs more than attentiveness and experience. Having gained the truth, the prophet must be obedient and loyal to it. Yet obedience and loyalty to the truth are the beginnings of martyrdom, of which the Servant now goes on to speak as the natural and immediate consequence of his prophecy.
III. THE SERVANT AS MARTYR
The classes of men who suffer physical ill-usage at the hands of their fellow-men may roughly be described as three, -the Military Enemy, the Criminal, and the Prophet; and of these three we have only to read history to know that the Prophet fares by far the worst. However fatal mens treatment of their enemies in war or of their criminals may be, it is, nevertheless, subject to a certain order, code of honour, or principle of justice. But in all ages the Prophet has been the target for the most licentious spite and cruelty; for torture, indecency, and filth past belief. Although our own civilisation has outlived the system of physical punishment for speech, we even yet see philosophers and statesmen, who have used no weapons but exposition and persuasion, treated by their opponents who would speak of a foreign enemy with respect-with execration, gross epithets, vile abuse, and insults, that the offenders would not pour upon a criminal. If we have this under our own eyes, let us think how the Prophet must have fared before humanity learned to meet speech by speech. Because men attacked it, not with the sword of the invader or with the knife of the assassin, but with words, therefore (till not very long ago) society let loose upon them the foulest indignities and most horrible torments. Socrates valour as a soldier did not save him from the malicious slander, the false witness, the unjust trial, and the poison, with which the Athenians answered his speech against themselves. Even Hypatias womanhood did not awe the mob from tearing her to pieces for her teaching. This unique and invariable experience of the Prophet is summed up and clenched in the name Martyr. Martyr originally meant a witness or witness-bearer, but now it is the synonym for every shame and suffering which the cruel ingenuity of mens black hearts can devise for those they hate. A Book of Battles is horrible enough, but at least valour and honour have kept down in it the baser passions. A Newgate Chronicle is ugly enough, but there at least are discipline and a hospital You have got to go to a Book of Martyrs to see to what sourness, wickedness, malignity, pitilessness, and ferocity mens hearts can lend themselves. There is something in the mere utterance of truth, that rouses the very devil in the hearts of many men.
Thus it had always been in Israel, nation not only of prophets, but of the slayers of prophets. According to Christ, prophet-slaying was the ineradicable habit of Israel. "Ye are the sons of them that slew the prophets O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killer of prophets and stoner of them that are sent unto her!" To them who bare it the word of Jehovah had always been "a reproach": cause of estrangement, indignities, torments, and sometimes of death. Up to the time of our prophet there had been the following notable sufferers for the Word: Elijah, Micaiah the son of Imlah; Isaiah, if the story be true that he was slain by Manasseh; but nearer, more lonely, and more heroic than all, Jeremiah, a "laughing-stock" and "mockery," "reviled," "smitten," fettered, and condemned to death. In words which recall the experience of so many individual Israelites, and most of which were used by Jeremiah of himself, the Servant of Jehovah describes his martyrdom in immediate consequence from his prophecy.
And I-I was not rebellious,
Nor turned away backward.
My back I have given to the smiters,
And my cheek to tormentors;
My face I hid not from insults and spitting.
These are not national sufferings. They are no reflection of the hard usage which the captive Israel suffered from Babylon. They are the reflection of the reproach and pains, which, for the sake of Gods word, individual Israelites more than once experienced from their own nation. But if individual experience, and not national, formed the original of this picture of the Servant as Martyr, then surely we have in this another strong reason against the objection to recognise in the Servant at last an individual. It may be, of course, that for the moment our prophet feels that this frequent experience of individuals in Israel is to be realised by the faithful Israel, as a whole, in their treatment by the rest of their cruel and unspiritual countrymen. But the very fact that individuals have previously fulfilled this martyrdom in the history of Israel, surely makes it possible for our prophet to foresee that the Servant, who is to fulfil it again, shall also be an individual.
But, returning from this slight digression on the person of the Servant to his fate, let us emphasise again, that his sufferings came to him as the result of his prophesying. The Servants sufferings are not penal, they are not yet felt to be vicarious. They are simply the reward with which obdurate Israel met all her prophets, the inevitable martyrdom which followed on the uttering of Gods Word. And in this the Servants experience forms an exact counterpart to that of our Lord. For to Christ also reproach and agony and death-whatever higher meaning they evolved-came as the result of His Word. The fact that Jesus suffered as our great High Priest must not make us forget that His sufferings fell upon Him because He was a Prophet. He argued explicitly He must suffer, because so suffered the prophets before Him. He put Himself in the line of the martyrs: as they had killed the servants, He said, so would they kill the Son. Thus it happened. His enemies sought "to entangle Him in His talk": it was for His talk they brought Him to trial. Each torment and indignity which the Prophet-Servant relates, Jesus suffered to the letter. They put Him to shame and insulted Him; His helpless hands were bound; they spat in His face and smote Him with their palms; they mocked and they reviled Him; scourged Him again; teased and tormented Him; hung Him between thieves; and to the last the ribald jests went up, not only from the soldiers and the rabble, but from the learned and the religious authorities as well, to whom His fault had been that He preached another word than their own. The literal fulfilments of our prophecy are striking, but the main fulfilment, of which they are only incidents, is, that like the Servant, our Lord suffered directly as a Prophet. He enforced and He submitted to the essential obligation, which lies upon the true Prophet, of suffering for the Words sake. Let us remember to carry this over with us to our final study of the Suffering Servant as the expiation for sin.
In the meantime, we have to conclude the Servants appearance as Martyr in chapter 1. He has accepted his martyrdom; but he feels it is not the end with him. God will bring him through, and vindicate him in the eyes of the world, For the world, in their usual way, will say that because he gives them a new truth he must be wrong, and because he suffers he is surely guilty and cursed before God. But he will not let himself be confounded, for God is his help and advocate.
But My Lord Jehovah shall help me;
Therefore, I let not myself be rebuffed:
Therefore, I set my face like a flint,
And know that I shall not be shamed.
Near is my Justifier; who will dispute with
Let us stand up together!
Who is mine adversary?
Let him draw near me.
Lo! my Lord Jehovah shall help me;
Who is he that condemns me?
Lo! like a garment all of them rot,
The moth doth devour them.
These lines, in which the Holy Servant, the Martyr of the Word, defies the world and asserts that God shall vindicate his innocence, are taken by Paul and used to assert the justification, which every believer enjoys through faith in the sufferings of Him who was indeed the Holy Servant of God.
The last two verses of chapter 50 (Isa_50:10-11) are somewhat difficult. The first of them still speaks of the Servant, and distinguishes him-a distinction we must note and emphasise-from the God-fearing in Israel.
Who is among you that feareth Jehovah,
That hearkens the voice of His Servant,
That walks in dark places,
And light he has none?
Let him trust in the name of Jehovah,
And lean on his God.
That is, every pious believer in Israel is to take the Servant for an example; for the Servant in distress "leans upon his God." And so Pauls application of the Servants words to the individual believer is a correct one. But if our prophet is able to think of the Servant as an example to the individual Israelite, that surely is a thought not very far from the conception of the Servant himself as an individual.
If Isa_50:10 is addressed to the pious in Israel, Isa_50:11 would seem to turn with a last word-as the last words of the discourses in Second Isaiah so often turn-to the wicked in Israel.
Lo! all you, players with fire,
That gird you with firebrands!
Walk in the light of your fire,
In the firebrands ye kindled.
This from my hand shall be yours;
Ye shall lie down in sorrow.
It is very difficult to know who are meant by this warning. An old and almost forgotten interpretation is that the prophet meant those exiles who played with the fires of political revolution, instead of abiding the deliverance of the Lord. But there is now current among exegetes the more general interpretation that these incendiaries are the revilers and abusers of the Servant within Israel: for so the Psalms speak of the slingers of burning words at the righteous. We must notice, however, that the metaphor stands over against those in Israel who "walk in dark places and have no light." In contrast to that kind of life, this may be the kind that coruscates with vanity, flashes with pride, or burns and scorches with its evil passions. We have a similar name for such a life. We call it a display of fireworks. The prophet tells them, who depend on nothing but their own false fires, how transient these are, how quickly quenched.
But is it not weird, that on our prophets stage, however brilliantly its centre shines with figures of heroes and deeds of salvation, there should always be this dark, lurid background of evil and accursed men?
CHAPTER XXI
DOUBTS IN THE WAY
Isaiah 49 - Isaiah 52:12
CHAPTERS 49-53 are, as we have seen, a series of more or less closely joined passages, in which the prophet, having already made the political redemption of Israel certain through Cyrus, and having dismissed Cyrus from his thoughts, addresses himself to various difficulties in the way of restoration, chiefly moral and spiritual, and rising from Israels own feelings and character; exhorts the people in face of them by Jehovahs faithfulness and power; but finds the chief solution of them in the Servant and his prophetic and expiatory work. We have already studied such of these passages as present the Servant to us, and we now take up those others, which meet the doubts and difficulties in the way of restoration by means of general considerations drawn from Gods character and power. Let it be noticed that, with one exception, {Isa_50:11} these passages are meant for earnest and pious minds in Israel, -for those Israelites, whose desires are towards Zion, but chill and heavy with doubts.
The form and the terms of these passages are in harmony with their purpose. They are a series of short, high-pitched exhortations, apostrophes and lyrics. One, Isa_52:9-12, calls upon the arm of Jehovah, but all the rest address Zion, -that is, the ideal people in the person of their mother, with whom they ever so fondly identified themselves; or "Zions children"; or "them that follow righteousness," or ye "that know righteousness"; or "my people, my nation"; or again Zion herself. This personification of the people under the name of their city, and under the aspect of a woman, whose children are the individual members of the people, will be before us till the end of our prophecy. It is, of course, a personification of Israel, which is complementary to Israels other personification under the name of the Servant. The Servant is Israel active, comforting, serving his own members and the nations; Zion, the Mother-City, is Israel passive, to be comforted, to be served by her own sons and by the kings of the peoples.
We may divide the passages into two groups. First, the songs of return, which rise out of the picture of the Servant and his redemption of the people in Isa_49:9 b, with the long promise and exhortation to Zion and her children, that lasts till the second picture of the Servant in Isa_52:4; and second, the short pieces which lie between the second picture of the Servant and the third, or from the beginning of champ, 51 to Isa_52:12.
I.
In Isa_49:9 b Gods promise of the return of the redeemed proceeds naturally from that of their ransom by the Servant. It is hailed by a song in Isa_49:13, and the rest of the section is the answer to three doubts, which, like sobs, interrupt the music. But the prophecy, stooping, as it were, to kiss the trembling lips through which these doubts break, immediately resumes its high flight of comfort and promise. Two of these doubts are: Isa_49:14, "But Zion hath said, Jehovah hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me"; and Isa_49:24, "Shall the prey be taken from the mighty or the captives of the terrible be delivered?" The third is implied in Isa_50:1.
The promise of return is as follows: "On roads shall they feed, and on all bare heights shall be their pasture. They shall not hunger nor thirst, nor shall the mirage nor the sun smite them: for He that yearneth over them shall lead them, even by springs of water shall He guide them. And I will set all My mountains for a way, and My high ways shall be exalted. Lo, these shall come from far: and, lo, these from the North and from the West, and these from the land of Sinim. Sing forth, O heavens; and be glad, O earth; let the mountains break forth into singing: for Jehovah hath comforted His people, and over His afflicted He yearneth."
Now, do not let us imagine that this is the promise of a merely material miracle. It is the greater glory of a purely spiritual one, as the prophet indicates in describing its cause in the words, "because He that yearneth over them shall lead them." The desert is not to abate its immemorial rigours; in itself the way shall still be as hard as when the discredited and heartbroken exiles were driven down it from home to servitude. But their hearts are now changed, and that shall change the road. The new faith, which has made the difference, is a very simple one, that God is Power. and that God is Love. Notice the possessive pronouns used by God, and mark what they put into His possession: two kinds of things, -powerful things, "I will make all My mountains a way"; and sorrowful things, "Jehovah hath comforted His people, and will have compassion on His afflicted." If we will steadfastly believe that everything in the world which is in pain, and everything which has power, is Gods, and shall be used by Him, the one for the sake of the other, this shall surely change the way to our feet, and all the world around to our eyes.
1. Only it is so impossible to believe it when one looks at real fact; and however far and swiftly faith and hope may carry us for a time, we always come to ground again and face to face with fact. The prophets imagination speeding along that green and lifted highway of the Lord lights suddenly upon the end of it, -the still dismantled and desolate city. Fifty years Zions altar fires have been cold and her walls in ruin. Fifty years she has been bereaved of her children and left alone. The prophet hears the winds blow mournfully through her facts chill answer to faith. "But Zion said, Forsaken me hath Jehovah, and my Lord hath forgotten me!" Now let us remember that our prophet has Zion before him in the figure of a mother, and we shall feel the force of Gods reply. It is to a mothers heart God appeals. "Doth a woman forget her sucking child so as not to yearn over the son of her womb? yea, such may forget, but I will not forget thee," desolate mother that thou art! Thy life is not what thou art in outward show and feeling, but what thou art in My love and in My sight. "Lo, upon both palms have I graven thee; thy walls are before Me continually." The custom, which to some extent prevails in all nations, of puncturing or tattooing upon the skin a dear name one wishes to keep in mind, is followed in the East chiefly for religious purposes, and men engrave the name of God or some holy text upon the hand or arm for a memorial or as a mark of consecration. It is this fashion which God attributes to Himself. Having measured His love by the love of a mother, He gives this second human pledge for His memory and devotion. But again He exceeds the human habit; for it is not only the name of Zion which is engraved on His hands, but her picture. And it is not her picture, as she lies in her present ruin and solitariness, but: her restored and perfect state: "thy walls are continually before Me." For this is faiths answer to all the ruin and haggard contradiction of outward fact. Reality is not what we see: reality is what God sees. What a thing is in His sight and to His purpose, that it really is, and that it shall ultimately appear to mens eyes. To make us believe this is the greatest service the Divine can do for the human. It was the service Christ was always doing, and nothing showed His divinity more. He took us men and He called us, unworthy as we were, His brethren, the sons of God. He took such a one as Simon, shifting and unstable, a quicksand of a man, and He said, "On this rock I will build My Church." A mans reality is not what he is in his own feelings, or what he is to the worlds eyes; but what he is to Gods love, to Gods yearning, and in Gods plan. If he believe that, so in the end shall he feel it, so in the end shall: he show it to the eyes of the world.
2. Upon those great thoughts, that Gods are all strong things and all weak things, and that the real and the certain in life are His will, the prophecy breaks into a vision of multitudes in motion. There are a great stirring and hastening, crowds gather up through the verses, the land is lifted and thronged. "Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold: all of them gather together, they come unto thee. As I live, saith Jehovah, thou shalt surely clothe thyself with them all as with an ornament, and gird thyself with them, like a bride. For as for thy waste places and thy desolate ones and thy devastated land-yea, thou wilt now be too strait for the inhabitants, and far off shall be they that devour thee. Again shall they speak in thine ears, -the children of thy bereavement" (that is, those children who have been born away from Zion during her solitude), "Too strait for me is the place, make me room that I may dwell. And thou shalt say in thine heart, Who hath borne me these,"-not begotten, as our English version renders, because the question with Zion was not who was the father of the children, but who, in her own barrenness, could possibly be the mother, -"Who hath borne me these, seeing I was" first "bereft of my children, and" since then have been "barren, an exile and a castaway! And these, who hath brought them up! Lo, I was left by myself. These, -whence are they!" Our English version, which has blundered in the preceding verses, requires no correction in the following; and the first great Doubt in the Way being now answered, for "they that wait on the Lord shall not be ashamed," we pass to the second, in Isa_49:24.
2. "Can the prey be taken from the mighty, or the captives of the tyrant be delivered?" Even though God be full of love and thought for Zion, will these tyrants give up her children? "Yea, thus saith Jehovah, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken, and the prey of the tyrant be delivered; and with him that quarreleth with thee will I quarrel, and thy children will I save. And I will make thine oppressors to eat their own flesh, and as with new wine with their blood shall they be drunken, that all flesh may know that I am Jehovah thy Saviour, and thy Redeemer the Mighty One of Jacob."
3. But now a third Doubt in the Way seems to have risen. Unlike the two others, it is not directly stated, but we may gather its substance from the reply which Jehovah makes to it. {Isa_50:1} "Thus saith Jehovah, What is this bill of divorce of your mother whom I have sent away, or which of My creditors is it to whom I have sold you?" The form, in which this challenge is put, assumes that the Israelites themselves had been thinking of Jehovahs dismissal of Israel as an irrevocable divorce and a bankrupt sale into slavery.
"What now is this letter of divorce, -this that you are saying I have given your mother?
You say that I have sold you as a bankrupt father sells his children, -to which then of my creditors is it that I have sold you?"
The most characteristic effect of sin is that fit is always reminding men of law. Whether the moral habit of it be upon them or they are entangled in its material consequences, sin breeds in men the conscience of inexorable, irrevocable law. Its effect is not only practical, but intellectual. Sin not only robs a man of the freedom of his own will, but it takes from him the power to think of freedom in others, and it does not stop till it paralyses his belief in the freedom of God. He, who knows himself as the creature of unchangeable habits or as the victim of pitiless laws, cannot help imputing his own experience to what is beyond him, till all life seems strictly lawbound, the idea of a free agent anywhere an impossibility, and God but a part of the necessity which rules the universe.
Two kinds of generations of men have most tended to be necessitarian in their philosophy, the generations which have given themselves over to do evil, and the generations whose political experience or whose science has impressed them with the inevitable physical results of sin. If belief in a Divine Redeemer, able to deliver mans nature from the guilt and the curse of sin, is growing weak among us to-day, this is largely due to the fact that our moral and our physical sciences have been proving to us what creatures of law we are, and disclosing, especially in the study of disease and insanity, how inevitably suffering follows sin. God Himself has been so much revealed to us as law, that as a generation we find it hard to believe that He ever acts in any fashion that resembles the reversal of a law, or ever works any swift, sudden deed of salvation.
Now the generation of the Exile was a generation, to whom God had revealed Himself as law. They were a generation of convicts. They had owned the justice of the sentence which had banished and enslaved them; they had experienced how inexorably Gods processes of judgment sweep down the ages; for fifty years they had been feeling the inevitable consequences of sin. The conscience of Law, which this experience was bound to create in them, grew ever more strong, till at last it absorbed even the hope of redemption, and the God who enforced the Law Himself seemed to be forced by it. To express this sense of law these earnest Israelites-for though in error they were in earnest-went to the only kind of law with which they were familiar, and borrowed from it two of its forms, which were not only suggested to them by the relations in which the nation and the nations sons respectively stood to Jehovah, as wife and as children, but admirably illustrated the ideas they wished to express. There was, first, the form of divorce, so expressive of the ideas of absoluteness, deliberateness, and finality; -of absoluteness, for throughout the East power of divorce rests entirely with the husband; of deliberateness, for in order to prevent hasty divorce the Hebrew law insisted that the husband must make a bill or writing of divorce instead of only speaking dismissal; and of finality, for such a writing, in contrast to the spoken dismissal, set the divorce beyond recall. The other form, which the doubters-borrowed from their law, was one which, while it also illustrated the irrevocableness of the act, emphasised the helplessness of the agent, -the act of the father, who put his children away, not as the husband put his wife in his anger, but in his necessity, selling them to pay his debts and because he was bankrupt.
On such doubts God turns with their own language. "I have indeed put your mother away, but where is the bill that makes her divorce final, beyond recall? You indeed were sold, but was it because I was bankrupt? To which, then, of My creditors (not the scorn of the plural) was it that I sold you? Nay, by means of your iniquities did you sell yourselves, and by means of your transgressions were you put away. But I stand here ready as ever to save, I alone. If there is any difficulty about your restoration it lies in this, that I am alone, with no response or assistance from men. Why when I came was there no man? when I called was there none to answer? Is My hand shortened at all that it cannot redeem? or is there in it no power to deliver?" And so we come back to the truth, which this prophecy so often presents to us, that behind all things there is a personal initiative and urgency of infinite power, which moves freely of its own compassion and force, which is hindered by no laws from its own ends, and needs no mans co-operation to effect its purposes. The rest of the Lords answer to His peoples fear, that He is bound by an inexorable law, is simply an appeal to His wealth of force. This omnipotence of God is our prophets constant solution for the problems which arise, and he expresses it here in his favourite figures of physical changes and convulsions of nature. "Lo, with My rebuke I dry up the sea, I make rivers a wilderness: their fish stinketh, because there is no water, and dieth for thirst. I clothe the heavens with blackness, and sackcloth I set for their covering." The argument seems to be: if God can work those sudden revolutions in the physical world, those apparent interruptions of law in that sphere, surely you can believe Him capable of creating sudden revolutions also in the sphere of history, and reversing those laws and processes, which you feel to be unalterable. It is an argument from the physical to the moral world, in our prophets own analogical style, and like those we found in chapter 40.
II.
Isa_51:1-23; Isa_52:1-12
Passing over the passage on the Servant, Isa_50:4-11, we reach a second series of exhortations in face of Doubts in the Way of the Return. The first of this new series is Isa_51:1-3.
Their doubts having been answered with regard to Gods mindfulness of them and His power to save them, the loyal Israelites fall back to doubt themselves. They see with dismay how few are ready to achieve the freedom that God has assured, and upon how small and insignificant a group of individuals the future of the nation depends. But their disappointment is not made by them an excuse to desert the purpose of Jehovah: their fewness makes them the more faithful, and the defection of their countrymen drives them the closer to their God. Therefore, God speaks to them kindly, and answers their last sad doubt. "Hearken unto Me, ye that follow righteousness, that seek Jehovah." "Righteousness" here might be taken in its inward sense of conformity to law, personal rightness of character; and so taken it would well fall in with the rest of the passage. Those addressed would then be such in Israel, as in face of hopeless prospects applied themselves to virtue and religion. But "righteousness" here is more probably used in the outward sense, which we have found prevalent in "Second Isaiah," of vindication and victory; the "coming right" of Gods people and Gods cause in the world, their justification and triumph in history. They who are addressed will then be they who, in spite of their fewness, believe in this triumph, "follow it," make-it their goal and their aim, and "seek Jehovah," knowing that He can bring it to pass. And because, in spite of their doubts, they are still earnest, and though faint are yet pursuing, God speaks to comfort them about their fewness. Their present state may be very small and unpromising, but let them look back upon the much more unpromising character of their origin: "look unto the rock whence ye were hewn, and the hole of the pit whence ye were digged." Today you may be a mere handful, ridiculous in the light of the destiny you were called to achieve, but remember you were once but one man: "look unto Abraham your father, and to Sarah who bare you: for as one I called him and blessed him, that I might make of him many."
When we are weary and hopeless it is best to sit down and remember. Is the future dark: let us look back and see the gathering and impetus of the past! We can follow the luminous track, the unmistakable increase and progress, but the most inspiring sight of all is what God makes of the individual heart; how a mans heart is always His beginning, the fountain of the future, the origin of nations. Lift up your hearts, ye few and feeble; your father was but one when I called him, and I made him many!
Having thus assured His loyal remnant of the restoration of Zion, in spite of their fewness, Jehovah in the next few verses (Isa_51:4-8) extends the prospect of His glory to the world: "Revelation shall go forth from Me, and I will make My law to light on the nations." Revelation and Law between them summarise His will. As He identified them both with the Servants work, {Isa_40:11} so here He tells the loyal in Israel, who were in one aspect His Servant, that they shall surely come to pass; and in the next little oracle, Isa_51:7-8, He exhorts them to do that in which the Servant has been set forth as an example: "fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be dismayed at their revilings. For like a garment the moth shall eat them up, and like wool shall the worm devour them." It is a response in almost the same words to the Servants profession of confidence in God in Isa_50:7-9. By some it is used as an argument to show that the Servant and the godly remnant are to our prophet still virtually one and the same; but we have already seen (Isa_50:10) the godfearing addressed as distinct from the Servant, and can only understand here that they are once more exhorted to take him as their example. But if the likeness of the passage on the Servant to this passage on the suffering Remnant does not prove that Remnant and Servant are the same, it is certainly an indication that both passages, so far from being pieced together out of different poems, are most probably due to the same author and were produced originally in the same current of thought.
When all Doubts in the Way have now been removed, what can remain but a great impatience to achieve at once the near salvation? To this impatience the loosened hearts give voice in Isa_51:9-11 : "Awake, awake, put on strength, Arm of Jehovah; awake as in the days of old, ages far past!" Not in vain have Israel been called to look back to the rock whence they were hewn and the hole of the pit whence they were digged. Looking back, they see the ancient deliverance manifest: "Art thou not it that hewed Rahab in pieces, that pierced the Dragon! Art thou not it that dried up the sea, waters of the great flood; that did set the hollows of the sea a way for the passage of the redeemed." Then there breaks forth the march of the Return, which we heard already in the end of chapter 35, (Issiah 1-39) and to His peoples impatience Jehovah responds in Isa_51:9-16 in strains similar to those of chapter 40. The last verse of this reply is notable for the enormous extension which it gives to the purpose of Jehovah in endowing Israel as His prophet, -an extension to no less than the renewal of the universe, -"in order to plant the heavens and found the earth"; though the reply emphatically concludes with the restoration of Israel, as if this were the cardinal moment in the universal regeneration, -"and to say to Zion, My people art thou." The close conjunction; into which this verse brings words already applied to Israel as the Servant and words which describe Israel as Zion, is another of the many proofs we are discovering of the impossibility of breaking up "Second Isaiah" into poems, the respective subjects of which are one or other of these two personifications of the nation.
But the desire of the prophet speeds on before the returning exiles to the still prostrate and desolate city. He sees her as she fell, the day the Lord made her drunken with the cup of His wrath. With urgent passion he bids her awake, seeking to rouse her now by the horrid tale of her ruin, and now by his exultation in the vengeance the Lord is preparing for His enemies. {Isa_51:17-23} In a second strophe he addresses her in conscious contrast to his taunt-song against Babel. Babel was to sit throneless and stripped of her splendour in the dust; but Zion is to shake off the dust, rise, sit on her throne and assume her majesty. For God hath redeemed His people. He could not tolerate longer "the exulting of their tyrants, the blasphemy of His name". {Isa_52:6} All through these two strophes the strength of the passion, the intolerance of further captivity, the fierceness of the exultation of vengeance, are very remarkable.
But from the ruin of his city, which has so stirred and made turbulent his passion, the prophet lifts his hot eyes to the dear hills that encircle her; and peace takes the music from vengeance. Often has Jerusalem seen rising across that high margin the spears and banners of her destroyers. But now the lofty skyline is the lighting place of hope. Fit threshold for so Divine an arrival, it lifts against heaven, dilated and beautiful, the herald of the Lords peace, the publisher of salvation.
"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation!
Hark thy watchmen! they lift up the voice, together they break into singing; yea, eye to eye do they see when Jehovah returneth to Zion."
The last verse is a picture of the thronging of the city of the prophets by the prophets again-so close that they shall look each other in the face.
For this is the sense of the Hebrew "to see eye to eye," and not that meaning of reconciliation and agreement which the phrase has come to have in colloquial English. The Exile had scattered the prophets arm driven them into hiding. They had been only voices to one another, like Jeremiah and Ezekiel with the desert between the two of than, or like our own prophet, anonymous and unseen. But upon the old gathering-ground, the narrow but the free and open platform of Jerusalems public life, they should see each other face to face, they should again be named and known. "Break out, sing together, ye wastes of Jerusalem: for Jehovah has comforted His people, has redeemed Jerusalem. Bared has Jehovah His holy arm to the eyes of all the nations, and see shall all ends of the earth the salvation of our God."
Thus the prophet, after finishing his long argument and dispelling the doubts that still lingered at its close, returns to the first high notes and the first dear subject with which he opened in chapter 40. In face of so open a way, so unclouded a prospect, nothing remains but to repeat, and this time with greater strength than before, the call to leave Babylon:
Draw off, draw off, come forth from there, touch not the unclean;
Come forth from her midst; be ye clean that do bear the vessels of Jehovah.
Nay, neither with haste shall ye forth, nor in flight shall ye go,
For Jehovah goeth before thee, and Israels God is thy rearward.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain Isa_49:1-6. Listen, O isles, unto me, &c.
OUR SAVIOUR AND THE WORK OF OUR SALVATION
Isa_49:1-6. Listen, O isles, unto me, &c.
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It is to the Gentiles, to us, that Christ here speaks concerning Himself and the work of salvation (Isa_49:1). What is the information to which He would have us “hearken?” This—
I. For the work of redemption He was appointed and set apart by God (Isa_49:1. Cf. Mat_1:21). From the womb of eternity, before all worlds, He was called to this service. From this divine appointment comes His authority for its prosecution (Heb_5:4).
II. God had fitted and qualified Him for the service to which He had designed Him (Isa_49:2. Cf. Rev_1:16; Rev_19:15; Heb_4:12). [1492]
[1492] The sword and arrow were the chief weapons of the ancients, and were emblems of powerful and persuasive speech. The Tartars proclaim a powerful prince thus:—“His word shall be as a sword.” Of Pericles it is said, “His powerful speech pierced the hearer’s soul, and left deep behind in his bosom its keener point infixed.” Such is the power of the Gospel.—Thodey.
III. For the service to which He was preferred, God had reserved and protected Him (Isa_49:2). “In the shadow of His hand hath He hid me, in His quiver hath He hid me,” denotes—
1. Concealment. The Gospel of Christ, and the calling in of the Gentiles by it, were long hidden in the counsels of God (Eph_3:5; Rom_16:25).
2. Protection. The house of David was the particular care of the Divine Providence, because that blessing was in it. Christ in His infancy was sheltered from the rage of Herod.
IV. That God had Himself announced to Him His election and its ultimate result (Isa_49:3).
V. That when He shrank discouraged from the prosecution of His work, God had strengthened His heart (Isa_49:4-6).
1. There came to the Redeemer a period of discouragement (Isa_49:4). This seems to point to the obstinacy of the Jews, among whom Christ went in person, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, laboured and spent His strength, and yet the rulers and the body of the nation rejected Him and His doctrine; so very few were brought in, when one would have thought that none should have stood out, that He might well say, “I have laboured,” &c. His prophets had passed through the same trial (Isa_6:9; Jer_20:9). It is the complaint still of many a faithful minister.
(1.) Let not ministers think it strange that they are slighted, when the Master Himself was.
(2.) Every faithful minister passing through such a trial, may be sure of the sympathy of Christ (Heb_4:15-16).
2. In this period of discouragement, He comforted Himself by remembering that it was the cause of God in which He was engaged, and the call of God that engaged Him in it, and that by God Himself His efforts would be judged (Isa_49:4-5).
3. In that trying time He was comforted by a gracious communication made to Him by God Himself (Isa_49:6). If He seemed for a time to fail in the small work to which He was called, in a work much greater He should be successful.—Matthew Henry, Commentary, in loco.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain There are two principal causes of the discouragement of…
Isa 49:4
There are two principal causes of the discouragement of the Christian. The first is the greatness of the task which God sets before him; the second is his inability to accomplish it.
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I. We are so constituted that every time the ideal of love and holiness to which the Gospel calls us is presented to us in its sublime beauty, our heart vibrates with a profound assent, and we feel that it is for this end that we were created. But when we must not only admire but act, when we must no longer let the imagination kindle at a perfection which ravishes it, but must realise this perfection in life, then we measure with dismay the distance which separates us from it,—discouragement seizes us. See what takes place in human affairs. Let a commonplace mind propose some end, commonplace like himself; it will cost him but little trouble to attain to it; artist, thinker, or poet, he will be easily satisfied. But let a true genius conceive a sublime ideal, let him seek to reproduce it, you will hear him mourn over his failures! Each of his efforts will perhaps produce a masterpiece which will satisfy everybody but himself. If God demanded less of us than holiness, He would be inferior to us, and our conscience would exact that which He Himself no longer exacted.
II. The second cause of the Christian’s discouragement is the ill-success of his efforts. It enters into God’s plan to conceal from us almost always the results of what we do for Him. Why does God will it? (1) That faith may be exercised. Picture a Christian life, where each effort will bear its fruits, where response will follow prayer, harvest seedtime, and the joy of deliverance long and painful sacrifices. In such a case, who would not be a Christian? Self-interest would be the first motive with all, and the kingdom of God would be peopled with mercenaries. (2) God treats us thus to humble us. (3) In this school He teaches us gentleness and compassion. Success alone will never develop these.
III. The fruit of our labours is only hidden; it will appear in due time. And even when nothing of it shall remain upon the earth, and the indifference of the world shall seem to conceal for ever your labours and your sacrifices, there will be left to you the consolation of the prophet: "My judgment is with the Lord, and my work with my God." This it is which ever constitutes the strength of the Christian. Solitary, deserted, despised by men, he has for Witness, for Approver, for Judge, the invisible Master whom nothing escapes, by whom nothing is forgotten.
E. Bersier, Sermons, 2nd series, p. 305.
I. This is just the language which we find at times forcing its way from the lips of most of those great men who have felt most conscious of having a mission from God. Those who have most deeply and radically influenced for good the minds of their generation have been usually distinguished by fits of profound melancholy; regret that they have ever entered on their heroic course; weariness at the opposition which they meet with; distrust of their own fitness for the task; doubts whether God has really commissioned them to act on His behalf. Why is this? It is because God’s results are for the most part secret. A man who sets a great example is hardly ever conscious of the effect which his example produces. If his plans are not carried out precisely in the way and to the end which he had originally contemplated, he persuades himself that they have been an utter failure, that no good can have arisen from them; whereas the truth is, and other persons see it, that the particular plans were from the outset worthless, in comparison with the exhibition of character by which the very attempt to execute them was accompanied.
II. The cross of Christ is the true guide to the nature and the value of real success. What a failure was the life of Christ, if we measure it by immediate results! No wonder that the cross was to the Jews a sore stumbling-block, and to the cultivated Greeks utter foolishness, just as it would now appear to most of us. For even we, the heirs of eighteen centuries of faith in the Crucified One, seem hardly yet to have learned the lesson that the suffering, self-sacrifice, devotion to principles, and heedlessness of immediate consequences, are the indispensable foundations of all permanent success.
H. M. Butler, Harrow Sermons, p. 308.
I. Some persons give themselves much unnecessary pain by underrating their real service in the world. The question of good-doing is one of great subtlety. The quiet worker is apt to envy the man who lives before society in a great breadth of self-demonstration. It is as if the dew should wish to be the pattering hail, or as if the soft breeze should disquiet itself because it cannot roar like a storm. We forget that whirlwind and earthquake, fire and cloud, tempest and silence, have all been God’s messengers; and it would be foolish of any of them to suppose that it had been of no use in the world.
II. The text shows the true comfort of those who mourn the littleness and emptiness of their lives. "My judgment is with the Lord, and my work with my God." God knows our purposes, our opportunities, and our endeavours, and He will perfect that which concerneth us. The intention of the heart, which it was impracticable to realise, will be set down to our favour, as if we had accomplished it all; and some of us who think that our inheritance can be but very bare and fruitless, will find that instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree, and instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle-tree, and our little portion in Israel shall become a great possession.
Parker, Pulpit Analyst, vol. i., p. 661.
References: Isa 49:4.—J. Ker, Sermons, 2nd series, p. 352; J. Keble, Sermons from Advent to Christmas Eve, p. 401. Isa 49:6.—R. Veitch, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxviii., p. 293. Isa 49:8.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ii., No. 103; Ibid., Morning by Morning, p. 3. Isa 49:11.—A. Maclaren, Contemporary Pulpit, vol. vii., p. 125. Isa 49:13-20.—C. Short, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvi., p. 163. Isa 49:16.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ix., No. 512; Ibid., Morning by Morning, p. 312. Isa 49:20, Isa 49:21.—Ibid., My Sermon Notes: Ecclesiastes to Malachi, p. 240.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain This section is not so argumentative in tone as…
This section is not so argumentative in tone as the last. Its distinguishing feature is the development of the prophet's teaching concerning the Servant of Jehovah. The conception seems to arise, as has been noted, with the nation considered collectively as a Servant of God (Isa_41:8-9; Isa_44:1-2, Isa_44:21; Isa_45:4). So long as the attitude and work of God in relation to the nation are solely in view, there is no limitation of the idea; but when the nation's work and attitude to Him and the fulfilment of His purposes come to be considered, the Servant of God seems to take on a narrower sense. The actual Israel, with its many shortcomings—its blindness to the truth, its deafness to God's message—gives way to those more select souls—a part only of the people—through whom the duties and destiny of the nation will be fulfilled. At the same time, it is clear that the idea passes on to an individual distinct from the nation (Isa_49:5-6), in whom are concentrated all the attributes of the ideal nation, and who shall realise all that Israel was intended to be. His character and office are thus delineated: (a) He is prepared by Jehovah from the womb for His lifework (Isa_49:1-2); (b) He is endowed with the Divine Spirit (Isa_42:1); (c) He is not ostentatious or unduly severe (Isa_42:2-3); (d) He is to be the embodiment of a New Covenant between Jehovah and His people (Isa_42:6; Isa_49:8); (e) and to teach all nations true religion (Isa_42:1, Isa_42:6; Isa_49:6); (f) but most remarkable of all, and especially characteristic of this division of the book, are the passages which intimate that this great work is only to be accomplished through humiliation, suffering, and death, issuing in a new and glorious life. The first hint that the Servant's work is to be carried on in face of difficulty and discouragement is found in Isa_42:4. His exposure to insult and contumely in the exercise of His mission is expressly indicated in Isa_50:6 then follows (Isa_52:13; Isaiah 53) a section entirely devoted to the subject, in which the prominent features are the Servant's gentleness and patience under affliction, the vicarious nature of His sufferings, which are not endured on His own account, but for the sins of His people, and the intimation that after pain and death there awaits Him new life full of joy in the contemplation of the success of His work. The correspondence, even in detail, with the Passion of Jesus Christ cannot fail to arrest attention. The way in which the Servant is despised and misunderstood by His contemporaries (Isa_53:3), His patience and silence before His accusers (Isa_53:7), and His association with malefactors in His death (Isa_53:9): these read like a description of what happened in the case of our Lord. How far the prophet understood the meaning of his own words it is difficult to say. No doubt he was thinking at the outset of the faithful core of Israel as being Jehovah's Servant with a great mission to accomplish, and the experience of the exile showed him that this great work for the whole world was only to be wrought through contumely and suffering; yet Jehovah sometimes spake 'with a strong hand' (Eze_3:14), and we can scarcely doubt that the Divine Spirit in these wonderful passages through the prophet foreshadowed the things that should be suffered and accomplished by the perfect Servant of God, the embodiment of Israel's splendid ideal, our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Servant of Jehovah
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Isa_49:1-13. The Servant of Jehovah tells of His call and mission. Jehovah confirms the confidence of His servant.
14-26. Objections arising from little faith answered: (a) it cannot be that Zion is forgotten by Jehovah, as she thought (Isa_49:14-23); (b) the grasp of the captors is not too strong for Jehovah to release His people (Isa_49:24-26).
Isa_50:1-11. The people's banishment is not by Jehovah's will, and He is able to deliver them. The Servant of Jehovah declares the conditions of his work. The prophet's comment on the Servant's words.
1. The speaker is the Servant of Jehovah.
From the womb] The thought is that of pre-destined creation, as in Jer_1:5; Luk_1:15; Gal_1:15
2. He is trained and protected by Jehovah.
3. Though here identified with Israel as fulfilling its ideal, the Servant is yet a Person distinct from the nation, or perhaps a personification of the pious core of the nation, who is to be the means of its restoration (Isa_49:6).
4. Though for a moment discouraged, the thought that God will vindicate the right and reward him reassures him. Work] RV 'recompense.'
5. Though.. glorious] RV 'and that Israel be gathered unto Him; for I am honourable.'
6. Cp. Isa_42:6. The Servant's mission is not limited to Israel. He is to proclaim a world-wide salvation.
7. A promise to the nation now despised and in bondage that the highest honour is yet in store for it. And he shall choose] RV 'who hath chosen.'
8. To establish, etc.] RV 'to raise up the land, to make them inherit,' fulfilled in the first place in the work of Zerubbabel. Give thee for a covenant, etc.] see Isa_42:6.
9. Cp. Isa_42:7. High places] RV 'bare heights.' The prisoners] i.e. in Babylon.
10, 11. The journey homeward shall be made easy for them. The language of Isa_49:10 is borrowed in Rev_7:16, Rev_7:17.
10. Heat] properly, 'mirage' (Isa_35:7)
12. From all quarters the returning exiles will come. Sinim stands for distant lands generally; in the opinion of most scholars it strictly signifies China.
16. Graven] refers to the custom of tattooing, by which devotees often indicated their consecration to a deity. According to the prophet's bold figure, Jehovah is devoted to Jerusalem, and cannot use His hands without being reminded of her.
17. Children] LXX and Vulgate read, 'builders.'
19. The land of thy destruction] RV 'thy land that hath been destroyed.'
20. The children.. other] RV 'the children of thy bereavement,' i.e. the children born in the days (of the exile) when Zion thought herself bereft of all her children.
22. Arms] RV 'bosom.' A particular fulfilment of Isa_49:22-23 may be traced in the favour shown by Persian monarchs to Jerusalem after the return from the exile (Ezr_1:1-4; Ezr_6:1-15; Ezr_7:11; Neh_2:1-9); a higher and spiritual fulfilment in the way in which princes in all lands have shown themselves patrons of the Church.
24. An incredulous question on the part of despondent Israelites. Lawful (lit. 'righteous') captive] i.e. captive taken from the righteous, or, adopting a slight emendation, 'captive of the terrible one' (Vulg., Syr., RM).
26. Feed, etc.] a figure expressing the destruction of Zion's enemies by mutual hostility (Isa_9:20).
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain 2. The Servant of Jehovah, His Suffering and His…
2. The Servant of Jehovah, His Suffering and His Glory (49-57)
CHAPTER 49
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The Servant of Jehovah and His Mission
1. The servant speaks of himself (Isa 49:1-3) 2. He complains of failure (Isa 49:4) 3. Jehovah’s answer to him (Isa 49:5-13) 4. Zion speaks (Isa 49:14) Jehovah’s answer (Isa 49:15-26) This entire chapter is the key to the whole section. The Servant of Jehovah, the Lord Jesus Christ, stands in the foreground. He is seen as the Rejected One, who complains that He has labored in vain. The ultimate result of His Work is prophetically described. In the opening verses He speaks of His call. To bring Jacob to God is why He appeared in the midst of His own. But Israel is not gathered, for they rejected Him (Isa 49:5). The nation abhorreth Him. Israel’s gathering was not accomplished at the first advent. The nation was set aside. By their fall salvation came to the Gentiles. This is fully revealed in Isa 49:6-7. In Isa 49:8-13 we find the future work of Christ as King. When it is accomplished the heavens will sing and the earth will be joyful. Zion’s present complaint (Isa 49:14) is answered by promises of restoration.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain The Testimony of Jehovah’s Servant
The Testimony of Jehovah’s Servant
v. 1. Listen, O isles, unto Me, and hearken, ye people, from far, the entire heathen world being called upon to give attention to the proclamation here being made: The Lord hath called Me from the womb, designating the Servant of Jehovah for His special service from the very hour of His birth; from the bowels of My mother hath He made mention of My name, the words plainly indicating that an individual is speaking, and not the entire nation of Israel, He who has received the definite name of the Messiah of Israel, for only He, properly speaking, is the Servant of Jehovah.
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v. 2. And He hath made My mouth like a sharp sword, in the proclamation of His Word, Heb 4:12; Rev 2:12; in the shadow of His hand hath He hid Me, as an instrument prepared for His service, and made Me a polished shaft, an arrow of unsullied purity; in His quiver hath He hid Me, to be used at the time appointed by Him,
v. 3. and said unto Me, Thou art My Servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified, the Messiah being the true Israel, He who battled with God and with men and remained victorious and was therefore elevated to the divine glory and majesty. Cf Php 2:9-11.
v. 4. Then I said, the Messiah speaking here in His role of true human being, in the weakness which beset Him in Gethsemane, I have labored in vain, I have spent My strength for naught and in vain, being oppressed with sorrow and the fear of death in the midst of his work of atonement; yet surely, in spite of that feeling of depression and terror, My judgment is with the Lord, the cause which He represented was that of Jehovah, and My work with My God, the fruit and result of His labors being in the hand of His almighty Father. It is the same thought which we find in the story of Gethsemane: If it be possible, take this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Thine, be done.
v. 5. And now, saith the Lord that formed Me from the womb to be His Servant, as stated in verse 1, to bring Jacob again to Him, namely, the true spiritual children of Jacob, Though Israel be not gathered, rather, "and that Israel may he gathered to Him," for this is one of the purposes for which the Servant of Jehovah is prepared, yet shall I be glorious In the eyes of the Lord, and My God shall be My Strength, the second object of the Servant’s calling being to equip Him for His work by the strength of the Lord.
v. 6. And He, Jehovah, said, It is a light thing that Thou shouldest be My Servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel, those whom the Lord had chosen for His own out of the descendants of the patriarchs, Cf Mat 15:24; I will also give Thee for a light to the Gentiles, Isa 60:3, that Thou mayest be My Salvation unto the end of the earth, the Servant of Jehovah being the Savior of the whole world, the heathen being fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of God. Although the children of Israel were the chosen people of the Lord, His first-born son, it remains true, nevertheless, that there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek; for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him, Rom 10:12.
v. 7. Thus saith the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel, the almighty and merciful Vindicator of His people, and His Holy One, who is zealous for His honor, to Him whom man despiseth, whom people generally hold in contempt, to Him whom the nation abhorreth, whom they regard as an abomination, to a Servant of rulers, one who is treated like a slave by the tyrants among men, as history relates of Jesus, Kings shall see and arise, namely, when He appears in view, princes also shall worship, being obliged to show Him due honor, because of the Lord that is faithful, since they are bound to realize that the Lord is standing behind His Servant and upholding His cause, and the Holy One of Israel, and He shall choose Thee, on account of the zeal of Jehovah for His chosen people.
v. 8. Thus saith the Lord, once more in answer to the complaint voiced in verse 4, In an acceptable time have I heard Thee, in the Messianic period, when His grace and mercy would be evident in an extraordinary measure, and in a day of salvation have I helped Thee, at the time when help came out of Zion upon the spiritual Israel; and I will preserve Thee, keeping Him from destruction in the hours of the greatest trials, and give Thee for a covenant of the people, as a Mediator of His covenant of grace, to establish the earth, the entire land of Canaan, as the type of the spiritual Israel’s heritage, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages, so that all believers become partakers of the blessings originally given to Israel (these blessings, chiefly of a spiritual nature, were willfully despised by the great majority of them, but are now, in the Messianic era, to be the lasting possession of all true Israelites),
v. 9. that Thou mayest say to the prisoners, Go forth, to them that are in darkness, namely, the darkness of sinfulness and unbelief, Show yourselves. The reference is to the spiritual deliverance, which is the fruit of the Gospel-message. Isa 42:22. They shall feed in the ways, the entire number of those who are partakers of the salvation in Christ enjoying the blessings offered by Him, and their pastures shall be in all high places, the richest spiritual food in the very midst of the vanities of this world.
v. 10. They shall not hunger nor thirst, having food and drink for their souls in abundance in the Word of His grace; neither shall the heat nor sun smite them, the tribulations of this world being unable permanently to harm them; for He that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall He guide them, the assurances of His loving-kindness and tender mercy serving to refresh the souls in every circumstance of life.
v. 11. And I will make all My mountains a way, and My highways shall be exalted, all obstructions and difficulties will be removed, so that the Lord’s children will have their pathway to heaven made smooth.
v. 12. Behold, these, those who belonged to the Lord by virtue of their salvation, shall come from far; and, lo, these from the North and from the West, and these from the land of Sinim, probably China, for the Lord has His own in every country of the world. For that reason the prophet inserts a powerful admonition to the whole creation to break forth in thanksgiving for the evidence of the Lord’s mercy in the salvation of His people.
v. 13. Sing, O heavens, and be Joyful, O earth, all creatures everywhere raising their voices in grateful anthems, and break forth into singing, O mountains; for the Lord hath comforted His people, refreshing and healing them in the midst of their afflictions, and will have mercy upon His afflicted, giving them direct and concrete evidence of His love in the Messiah. All this, however, redounds to the glory of the Lord’s Servant, since He alone receives all the credit for every soul which is saved by His mercy, as our hymns to this day expressly state.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Listen to me
Listen to me
Here "me" refers to Yahweh's servant.
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you coastlands
This refers to the people who live on the coastlands. AT: "you who live on the coastlands" (See: Metonymy)
He has made my mouth like a sharp sword
Here the word "mouth" represents the words that he speaks. His words are compared to a sharp sword to emphasize that they will be effective. AT: "He has made my words as effective as a sharp sword" (See: Metonymy and Simile)
he hid me in the shadow of his hand
Yahweh protecting his servant and keeping his purpose secret is spoken of as if Yahweh's hand cast a shadow over him. (See: Metaphor)
he has made me into a polished arrow; in his quiver he has hidden me
Yahweh's servant being able to carry out Yahweh's purposes effectively is spoken of as if the servant were a sharp, new arrow. (See: Metaphor)
in his quiver he has hidden me
Yahweh protecting his servant and keeping his purpose secret is spoken of as if Yahweh kept him hidden in a quiver. (See: Metaphor)
quiver
a case used to carry arrows
translationWords
people group
Yahweh
name
sword
shadow
hand
bow and arrow
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 49:1–55:13 God intended to rescue the Israelites from exile.…
49:1–55:13 God intended to rescue the Israelites from exile. However, the question remained: How could sinful Israel again become the servant of the Holy One? God would make a way for Israel’s sin to be atoned for and their fellowship with him to be restored. That way would be the promised servant, who would come for Israel and for all peoples. This servant was introduced in 42:1-9, but in this passage he becomes the central focus.
49:1-13 This has traditionally been regarded as the second of four suffering servant songs (see study note on 42:1-4). The suffering role of the promised servant becomes increasingly clear (see also 50:4-9; 52:13–53:12).
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49:1 distant lands: The servant’s ministry would extend beyond Israel (see 42:4, 10, 12; 51:5; 60:9; 66:19). • called me before my birth . . . from within the womb . . . by name: The promised servant’s prophetic call was similar to the call of Jeremiah (see Jer 1:5; see also Gal 1:15). It was not a general call but a very specific, personal one (see also Isa 43:1; 45:3-4).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.