Isaiah 49: 1 – 26
The Servant
1 “Listen, O coastlands, to Me, and take heed, you peoples from afar! The LORD has called Me from the womb; From the matrix of My mother He has made mention of My name. 2 And He has made My mouth like a sharp sword; In the shadow of His hand He has hidden Me, and made Me a polished shaft; In His quiver He has hidden Me.” 3 “And He said to me, ‘You are My servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified.’ 4 Then I said, ‘I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and in vain; Yet surely my just reward is with the LORD, and my work with my God.’ ” 5 “And now the LORD says, Who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant, to bring Jacob back to Him, so that Israel is gathered to Him for I shall be glorious in the eyes of the LORD, and My God shall be My strength, 6 Indeed He says, ‘It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles, that You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth.’ ” 7 Thus says the LORD, the Redeemer of Israel, their Holy One, to Him whom man despises, to Him whom the nation abhors, to the Servant of rulers:“Kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship, because of the LORD who is faithful, The Holy One of Israel; And He has chosen You.” 8 Thus says the LORD: “In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped You; I will preserve You and give You as a covenant to the people, to restore the earth, to cause them to inherit the desolate heritages; 9 That You may say to the prisoners, ‘Go forth,’ To those who are in darkness, ‘Show yourselves.’ “They shall feed along the roads, and their pastures shall be on all desolate heights. 10 They shall neither hunger nor thirst, neither heat nor sun shall strike them; For He who has mercy on them will lead them, even by the springs of water He will guide them. 11 I will make each of My mountains a road, and My highways shall be elevated. 12 Surely these shall come from afar; Look! Those from the north and the west, and these from the land of Sinim.” 13 Sing, O heavens! Be joyful, O earth! And break out in singing, O mountains! For the LORD has comforted His people, and will have mercy on His afflicted. 14 But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me, and my Lord has forgotten me.” 15 “Can a woman forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, yet I will not forget you. 16 See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; Your walls are continually before Me. 17 Your sons shall make haste; Your destroyers and those who laid you waste shall go away from you. 18 Lift up your eyes, look around and see; All these gather together and come to you. As I live,” says the LORD, “You shall surely clothe yourselves with them all as an ornament, and bind them on you as a bride does. 19 “For your waste and desolate places, and the land of your destruction, will even now be too small for the inhabitants; And those who swallowed you up will be far away. 20 The children you will have, after you have lost the others, will say again in your ears, ‘The place is too small for me; Give me a place where I may dwell.’ 21 Then you will say in your heart, ‘Who has begotten these for me, since I have lost my children and am desolate, a captive, and wandering to and fro? And who has brought these up? There I was, left alone; But these, where were they? 22 Thus says the Lord GOD: “Behold, I will lift My hand in an oath to the nations, and set up My standard for the peoples; They shall bring your sons in their arms, and your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders; 23 Kings shall be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers; They shall bow down to you with their faces to the earth, and lick up the dust of your feet. Then you will know that I am the LORD, for they shall not be ashamed who wait for Me.” 24 Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the captives of the righteous be delivered? 25 But thus says the LORD: “Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible be delivered; For I will contend with him who contends with you, and I will save your children. 26 I will feed those who oppress you with their own flesh, and they shall be drunk with their own blood as with sweet wine. All flesh shall know that I, the LORD, Am your Savior, and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”
Today I want to start off in sharing with you something I have never read or heard taught before. I think it is utterly amazing. I want you to think about this question. From Scripture is there any information that our Great El Shaddai – God Almighty – thought about mankind before Genesis 1:1?
Turn with me to the 1st chapter of the book of Ezekiel. Look with me at God’s word beginning at verse 6 “Also from within it came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance: they had the likeness of a man. 6 Each one had four faces, and each one had four wings. 7 Their legs were straight, and the soles of their feet were like the soles of calves’ feet. They sparkled like the color of burnished bronze. 8 The hands of a man were under their wings on their four sides; and each of the four had faces and wings. 9 Their wings touched one another. The creatures did not turn when they went, but each one went straight forward.10 As for the likeness of their faces, each had the face of a man; each of the four had the face of a lion on the right side, each of the four had the face of an ox on the left side, and each of the four had the face of an eagle. 11 Thus were their faces.”
At some time before our Great and Majestic Creator decided to make the heavens and earth and all living things He had made angels. Do you see the significance? This angel, as we learn in chapter 10 of the book of Ezekiel, was created with man’s likeness, so our Everlasting God had us in His plans. In the book of Revelation in chapter 4 you will also see how our Lord used similar but not the same type of angels to surround His Throne.
You might be saying to yourself well all this is nice but what does it have to do with our study of chapter 49 of the book of Isaiah. Please bear with me because I think this information and other information I am going to share with you not only relates to chapter 49 but amazingly displays the magnitude of our Precious Holy Spirit’s wisdom.
Now I want you to remember the appearance of the cherub. It had four faces right? What were they? Each one had the face of a lion, an ox, an eagle, and the face of a man. Okay so far?
Now the first four books of the New Testament are the 4 Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Matthew wrote his Gospel to the Jewish people to show and testify that Jesus was the Promised Messiah. He pointed out that our Great Adoni Yeshua, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was the ‘Lion of the tribe of Judah’.
I will skip Mark for a moment and talk about Luke. It is from this disciple where we get most of the information about our Lord Jesus’ birth. Luke spoke about our God Who became man. Are you seeing possibly where I am going with this? The apostle John wrote about our Lord how He Is God. He spoke of His divinity - Thus the majestic eagle. Now, what do you think Mark emphasized our Lord Jesus’ earthly walk represented? Yes, he spoke about how our Lord represented our Lord as the suffering servant which would be sacrificed for our sins.
We have been studied from the prophet Isaiah in the last few chapters of his teaching about ‘The Servant’
Can you now start to see and sense how awesome our Great God Is in how He just molds and matches other Scripture to unveil His truth.
Up to this point the Servant has been seen as potentially all the seed of Abraham. In Abraham his seed had entered the land and God’s purpose was that through him, and them, all the nations of the world would be blessed. Israel was summed up in Abraham. They were seen as the extension of what he was. They were seen as the Servant because they flowed from him. They were the extension of Abraham. Potentially therefore all Israel could be seen as the Servant.
But this is not all the truth, for as we saw in chapter 42 verses 1-4 ‘The Servant’ was also seen having the Spirit on him, as bringing justice to the Gentiles, as establishing justice in the earth and as having the isles/coastlands waiting for His Instruction. Here we have the true king as described in the words of Moses, who treasures Yahweh’s word and holds it in his heart so that He Is fully obedient to Adoni Yahweh – Father God. We read this in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 17, “18 “Also it shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book, from the one before the priests, the Levites. 19 And it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God and be careful to observe all the words of this law and these statutes, 20 that his heart may not be lifted above his brethren, that he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left, and that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children in the midst of Israel.”
This True and Obedient Servant would never turn aside, but rather require His people to walk in it. The Servant is in a real sense both priest and prophet, leading forward his people so that they too can serve Yahweh. The ideal hope expressed here was of an Israel who under their prophet king would be a witness for Yahweh to the Gentiles.
But the practicality was different. For now it is made clear that the actual Servant does not include all who would call themselves sons of Abraham. [Remember Paul’s arguments regarding this point] For the Servant is seen in this chapter as having a ministry to carry out on behalf of the whole of Israel in which is described in verse 5. Israel as a whole have failed on their part and are excluded from being a part of the Servant. This comes out in that here the Servant speaks, and in a striking declaration declares that Jehovah Yahweh has designated Him as the true Israel in which we will see in verse 3 Who is to bring back the light of salvation to the remainder of Jacob/Israel, raising them up and restoring them, in addition to his work of reaching out with it the Gentiles as listed in verse 6.
Thus the Servant is now comprised of the true seed of Abraham only, the godly who have remained faithful to Him, those who obey Him. Professed outward connection is one thing, but it is only those who are obedient to the covenant who are to be seen as truly His. Disobedience is seen as resulting in amputation from the true vine.
In the book of Exodus chapter 12 verses 48-49 we read, “And when a stranger dwells with you and wants to keep the Passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as a native of the land. For no uncircumcised person shall eat it. “One law shall be for the native-born and for the stranger who dwells among you.”
Being ‘Israel’ was a fluid concept. It was open to all who would come and submit themselves to Yahweh and His covenant. Any man could enter Israel by being circumcised and submitting to Yahweh and the covenant, even though he was previously a resident alien. In the same way an Israelite could be blotted out from among Israel for gross sin as we see in chapter 32 of Exodus, ‘And the LORD said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book.
One way in which this was represented in the Law was by the phrase ‘cut off from among the people’ which is taught in the book of Genesis chapter 17 verse 14, “And the uncircumcised male child, who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.”
There were a number of offences for which this was the penalty. Such people were to be cut off from among the people, for they were rejecting God’s appointed authority. It was a choice that they had made for themselves. By their act they had deliberately excluded themselves from obedience to covenant authority.
The same applied to anyone guilty of idolatry. Such a person also must be put to death. They were to be cut off from among the people. They too were ‘cursed’.
The idea of ‘God’s people’ is therefore always in tension. Outwardly it is those who appear to profess obedience to the covenant. But that was often nominal, and as we have just seen many of them were under the curse of Yahweh for their secret sins and were thus not in His eyes His people. Many were idolatrous and openly disobedient. Many did not confirm the words of His covenant in their hearts. As He could say to Elijah in the book of 1 Kings chapter 19 verse 18, ‘Yet will I leave me seven thousand in Israel who have not bowed the knee to Baal’. Yahweh always knew those who were His.”
The Servant is now to be seen as representing the faithful in Israel, who still honored His covenant. Yet he is still described as ‘Israel’ in verse 3 because in Father Yahweh’s eyes He alone represents the true Israel.
In ancient times king and people were seen as bound up in each other. Regularly the king could represent the people in religious ceremonies, acting as their representative, and even as their substitute, before the gods. And this representative status was certainly true of the Davidic king. When the king did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh, the nation was blessed. When he did what was evil in the eyes of Yahweh the nation was punished. He was ever seen as representing Israel. He was their very life. They felt bound up in him. In a very real sense therefore he would be seen by Israel as being in his own person ‘Israel’. So they would certainly have conceived of him as being addressed as ‘Israel’.
It is in fact impossible to avoid the idea that in certain places in the Servant passages the Servant has in the end very much the attributes of the coming king. We can indeed go further. We can see in this chapter such places that say He Is the expected king, the great representative of Israel who speaks in Israel’s name and by whose activity Israel will be judged. But he is a king uniquely in Israel’s image. He is the studier and dispenser of the word. His purpose is to bring Yahweh’s word home to the people. And He Is not seen as alone, for a king is never alone, He represents His obedient people. Others too assist Him in His task. Thus king and faithful people are seen as acting together as one in the Servant, but with the king taking a prominent role.
In the last few chapters we see reference of Abraham as ‘The Servant’. Abraham was originally the type of the coming king and pointed towards His coming. He too was one and yet many. His tribe and his later seed were all seen as bound up in him. That is why on a careless reading of Genesis we can think of Abraham as a solitary nomad travelling around with his family and a few sheep. But to the writer, and to the discerning reader, ‘Abraham’ is seen as including the thousands of his ‘household’ who travelled with him. They were ‘Abraham’.
We are certainly therefore to see here that the Servant here is both the coming king and those who were faithful in Israel. Wherever the king goes His faithful people go with him. Whatever the king does, His faithful people do with Him. So when God speaks to ‘Israel’ here He is speaking to the king. He is also speaking to his faithful followers. Concentration and emphasis is on the one who represents the many.
So potentially the Servant, because He Is Abraham, is all ‘the seed of Abraham’, and that includes the kings who came from his loins. [Can you now connect the significance why our Wonderful Holy Spirit sees to keep repeating the Scriptures such as ‘I AM the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?]
In reality ‘The True Servant’ Is the faithful seed of Abraham, for they alone are his true seed, the rest are cut off because disobedient, and above all He Is the faithful king. In essence He Is the one to whom that seed pointed. In the end the seed of Abraham comes to prime fulfillment in the coming King Who alone fulfils Abraham’s destiny. He replaces Abraham as the focal point. We could call him the new Abraham who is greater than Abraham. It began with Abraham, it will end with the prince who is The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince Of Peace, the Abraham beyond Abraham. He will have fulfilled Abraham’s destiny. The faithful are God’s Servant, and have their part to play in His service, but in the end there is only One Who really fulfils that service, the One to Whom all points, the only One who was ever truly obedient. All in the end flow from Him.
1 “Listen, O coastlands, to Me, and take heed, you peoples from afar! The LORD has called Me from the womb; From the matrix of My mother He has made mention of My name.
Israel did not live up to being the Servant. So now, having seen the failure of that Servant, they are spoken to by the new Servant. And he has a new task. He is to be concerned with the restoration of Israel, as well as with the purpose of fulfilling the destiny of the Servant towards the nations. He is to take on himself the whole world.
He was called from the womb and mention was made of his name by God even from the inner parts (bowels) of his mother, so closely was his destiny connected with God and His will.
2 And He has made My mouth like a sharp sword; In the shadow of His hand He has hidden Me, and made Me a polished shaft; In His quiver He has hidden Me.”
His mouth is His powerful weapon, a sharp sword with which He is able to smite men with His words and discern their inner thoughts. He needs no earthly sword. He will win with words. This is no ordinary king. He does not require weapons of iron, He uses powerful words.
Our Great Holy Ghost Is telling us that the sword, which is His mouth, is sheathed in the shadow of God’s hand. There it is completely preserved and when it comes forth, it comes forth from God’s hand. It is evidence that His words come from God. He does not speak of Himself, but what Yahweh would say, that He will speak. It is not only the sword which is in that scabbard; He too is in that scabbard. He too therefore is the preserved of God and revealed as God’s weapon. A polished shaft/arrowhead is one that has been made deadly accurate. It will not swerve from its main course. Thus is He set to move forward with accuracy and speed, He is kept safe and close and polished in the Almighty’s quiver. He is powerfully armed with all that God has provided for Him, and He does not just use the weaponry, He Is the weaponry.
3 “And He said to me, ‘You are My servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified.’
The Servant is now addressed as ‘My Servant Israel’. The one who stands here has taken over the mantle of Israel. Israel had proved faithless. Thus they had to be replaced by one who would restore Israel. This one has been selected out to represent Israel and fulfill Israel’s destiny as the Servant so as to bring glory to God. He stands in the place of Israel. He is the ‘Israel’ who acts in Israel’s name.
4 Then I said, ‘I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and in vain; Yet surely my just reward is with the LORD, and my work with my God.’ ”
Here ‘The True Servant’ – our Lord and Master Jesus Christ identifies Himself with the Servant in the past. He looks back at the past efforts of the Servant, i.e. the nation of Israel. The Servant had achieved little.
5 “And now the LORD says, Who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant, to bring Jacob back to Him, so that Israel is gathered to Him for I shall be glorious in the eyes of the LORD, and My God shall be My strength,
He both identifies Himself with the Servant mentioned previously, ‘formed from the womb’, and distinguishes Himself by His task. Israel/Jacob were formed from the womb that they might be mightily blessed and be witnesses to the nations but they had failed miserably. The first task of the new Servant is to fulfill the Servant’s task and bring Jacob back to Him again, and gather Israel to Him.
6 Indeed He says, ‘It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles, that You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth.’ ”
We see here that it is not just a matter of restoring exiles to the homeland, but of bringing them back to the light. Yahweh has preserved some of His people so that they might be restored to Him by the Servant. These are those who are remaining after God’s judgments.
Please take note of the parallel ‘you should be my servant’ with ‘that you may be my salvation’. He is to be both the Servant and the Deliverance. The deliverance is wrapped up in His person. He is to be the Savior of the nations. He is thus more than a king, He is more than a prophet, He is the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace
7 Thus says the LORD, the Redeemer of Israel, their Holy One, to Him whom man despises, to Him whom the nation abhors, to the Servant of rulers:“Kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship, because of the LORD who is faithful, The Holy One of Israel; And He has chosen You.”
The Servant is now put in true perspective. Initially He will be despised by men, He will be hated by nations, He will be a servant of rulers. This depicts both the humiliation of Israel and the humiliation of the coming One as described in chapter 53. While they joined with others in their idolatry Israel would be welcomed. They would simply blend in with others. But once they turned from idols and put forward God’s Instruction, all would change. The world would turn on them because of their ‘peculiarity’, just as the Servant in chapter 53 would be treated in the same way because of His unique message and way of living. His life would be an offence because men had turned into their own way.
So Yahweh, the Redeemer of Israel, Is the One Who has raised up this Servant to carry out His task of redemption. And it is the One Who is still Israel’s Holy One, will Who now speak to Him Who is despised by men and abhorred by the nation,
Note the reference to the term, ‘a servant of rulers’. When our Lord Jesus came to earth He was placed in a position where He has to submit to earthly rulers because He has not yet attained the authority which should be His.
Look at the contrast between the Holy One and the despised One, One is in heaven and the other on the earth, One is set apart in holiness and glory, the other is walking in humility as a hated One and a mere servant. It is the Servant of the Holy One Who walks in humility and humiliation. Men will despise Him because He seems so unimportant, the nation will abhor Him because they feel uneasy at Him and dislike His message. Rulers will see Him as a common servant, to be treated as such because they reject His authority.
However Father Yahweh will turn the tables for Him. In the end kings will arise in His honor, princes will pay Him homage. And this will all be because of Yahweh’s faithfulness to Him, He Who as the Holy One of Israel has chosen Him.
8 Thus says the LORD: “In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped You; I will preserve You and give You as a covenant to the people, to restore the earth, to cause them to inherit the desolate heritages; 9 That You may say to the prisoners, ‘Go forth,’ To those who are in darkness, ‘Show yourselves.’ “They shall feed along the roads, and their pastures shall be on all desolate heights. 12 Surely these shall come from afar; Look! Those from the north and the west, and these from the land of Sinim.”
Adoni Yahweh now speaks to the Servant again. When the acceptable time comes, the time of God’s favor, when the day of salvation is about to dawn, Yahweh will answer Him and help Him. He will preserve Him and give Him for a covenant of the people. That is, He will cause Him to stand before the people as a guarantee of Yahweh’s covenant with them, the everlasting covenant, the sure mercies of David. And the purpose of this will be so that He might rise up the land and cause them to inherit desolate heritages. The land will be restored and He will make ‘a way in the wildernesses. The heritage of each family will cease being desolate, and they will walk in well-watered ways. The Servant is acting for God on behalf of the people. He is doing the work of God. The result is that the land that they had inherited would become fruitful again. Out of their despair would come full restoration at His hands. And the ones who are to inherit will be called out of bondage and out of the darkness of prison houses, and told to go out and show themselves so that all might see that they have been delivered. It is a picture of triumphant salvation by the One of the many. The whole picture is of an ideal future.
People will come from far, from north and west and from the land of Sinim. Sinim has never been clearly identified. I have read that it might have a connection with a tribal area of China.
It is noteworthy that none were to come from the east. Babylon and the east are not mentioned, perhaps because Babylon was now seen as having been destroyed.
God’s salvation will be made available wherever they are. The journey is really the journey back to Him. But of course it had to result in a return of the faithful to Jerusalem, for it was from there that His word had to go out to the nations.
13 Sing, O heavens! Be joyful, O earth! And break out in singing, O mountains! For the LORD has comforted His people, and will have mercy on His afflicted.
The whole of creation is called on to declare its joy at what God has done for His people, and to wonder at His goodness and compassion on those who through affliction have been brought back to Him. Both the heavens and the mountains, the exalted parts of creation, are to sing, and especially the mountains, for it is from them that the Good News is to be declared, while the whole earth is to be filled with joy. For Yahweh has brought about what He promised in chapter 40 verse 1, and has revealed His great mercy on them.
The book of Isaiah began with Adoni Yahweh calling on the heaven and earth as witnesses in chapter 1 verse 2. There they were to witness the failure and disobedience of Israel. We studied in chapter 44 verse 23 that heaven and earth then rejoiced at Yahweh’s offer of forgiveness of sins, and His potential blotting out of their transgressions, and the redemption of those who were truly His people. Now the same occurs again because of the Servant’s work on behalf of His people, restoring them and giving them hope.
Our Holy Spirit now reverts the picture. Yahweh’s call to them was to be His Servant, but instead they are sitting moaning on the ground. Here the picture is of Jerusalem in despair because of her present state and because so many of her children are so far from her in exile in different parts of the world, taken their by various invaders or having fled there for refuge. But God assures her of His love for her and that her children will return. And she is given the picture of her children returning in droves and reaching out and possessing the land. The picture is one of full restoration to the nation of their dreams, a guarantee that one day all will be put right in the everlasting kingdom. And that will be in the new heaven and the new earth which culminates in the next to final chapter of Isaiah’s message that being chapter 65 verse 17.
14 But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me, and my Lord has forgotten me.”
The picture is of Zion/Jerusalem sitting pathetically ringing her hands and looking round at her desolation. She is deserted and forsaken. She considers that she has no future.
This is so like us. In contrast with the greatness of the Servant, is the plaintiveness of the people as a whole, now no longer the wondrous vision of ‘Israel’, the strong Servant, but the sad picture of ‘Zion’ the self-pitying, the petulant. In spite of all that they had done in forsaking Yahweh they were still unwilling to accept the truth about their own sinfulness and what they deserved. They had forsaken Him and forgotten Him, pushing Him to one side. And now they claimed that it was all His fault. Once we start to blame God it is a sign that we are totally wrapped up in ourselves and in our sin.
15 “Can a woman forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, yet I will not forget you. 16 See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; Your walls are continually before Me.
Here is a verse that is ripe and active today within our church. Because of drugs we come across parents who forsake their kids. They throw them away in garbage cans or worse. At our church we have on active record over 8000 kids. Sadly over 65% of them are from broken homes. We try to step in and love them even though their mothers and fathers have walked away from them.
Yahweh’s reply is magnificent. Would a nursing mother forget her child, her own born son? Yes, that is even possible. It has happened. But on no account will Yahweh forget the people of Jerusalem. For Jerusalem is His daughter. She is engraved on the palms of His hands so that its walls are continually before Him. Note the implication that the walls are still standing. He has not forgotten Jerusalem. He had already proved it by His treatment of Sennacherib and Assyria.
17 Your sons shall make haste; Your destroyers and those who laid you waste shall go away from you.
She need not be concerned. Her children, the Israelites who have been exiled around the world are in a hurry to return, and they will hurry to her, while those who ravage her will depart. She will be left secure. The promise is a general one, it covers any who seek to lay her waste. All her enemies without exception will depart and leave her alone, for when her children return it will be to the everlasting kingdom.
18 Lift up your eyes, look around and see; All these gather together and come to you. As I live,” says the LORD, “You shall surely clothe yourselves with them all as an ornament, and bind them on you as a bride does.
Zion is to cease moaning with her eyes cast down and is to look up, and look around. And then she will behold. Then she will see her children gathering to her. And if only she will believe as emphasized by the word ‘see’ she will be able to take them all and wear them as an ornament, and decorate herself with them like a bride decorates herself with jewels. All that was needed was the eyes of men and women with faith in Yahweh who would recognize what God could do.
19 “For your waste and desolate places, and the land of your destruction, will even now be too small for the inhabitants; And those who swallowed you up will be far away.
This passage refers to any period when invaders had come in and ravaged the land. It would happen again and again. But she need not fear. For when her children return they will be so many that they will spread abroad and inhabit the land. The small amount she now possesses will be too restricted. And no one will be able to prevent it because those who ‘swallowed her up’ and so restricted her will be far away. Final triumph is guaranteed.
20 The children you will have, after you have lost the others, will say again in your ears, ‘The place is too small for me; Give me a place where I may dwell.’ 21 Then you will say in your heart, ‘Who has begotten these for me, since I have lost my children and am desolate, a captive, and wandering to and fro? And who has brought these up? There I was, left alone; But these, where were they?
The Israelites feel bereaved of their children, but those very children will yet return, and they will be so many that they will complain that there is not enough room and will require more space, filling the land to overflowing, and inhabiting it. And in amazement the people will ask where these children have come from, even doubting that they can be her own. Note the sad description of her state, alone, without anything worthwhile and wandering helplessly and aimlessly about.
22 Thus says the Lord GOD: “Behold, I will lift My hand in an oath to the nations, and set up My standard for the peoples; They shall bring your sons in their arms, and your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders; 23 Kings shall be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers; They shall bow down to you with their faces to the earth, and lick up the dust of your feet. Then you will know that I am the LORD, for they shall not be ashamed who wait for Me.
Yahweh’s response is positive. Here God depicts the return of exiles from all over the world, as described in verses 20-21, as a triumphant march in response to God’s beckoning with the hand and the raising of His banner. The nations respond by bearing God’s people in their hearts and on their shoulders, kings and queens care for them and nurture them. It is a picture of triumphant progress towards the everlasting kingdom. The licking of the dust is a sign of defeat for their enemies, the bowing down a recognition that they are God’s chosen. They bow down to them because their King reigns supreme.
” 24 Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the captives of the righteous be delivered?
The question comes back in astonishment. Shall the prey be taken from the mighty? Shall those rightfully captive be delivered? Is this possible? They deserve to be captives, as what Isaiah has said previously has demonstrated, and their captors are mighty. They have no deserving, nothing to their credit, and they are weak. Will then God deliver even such as these?
We all should consider this point. We are just as bad as everyone. In God’s Mercy He woke us up to recognize His Salvation. We do not deserve anything but wrath, yet in His Mercy and Grace He just pours out His Love. Wow!
25 But thus says the LORD: “Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible be delivered; For I will contend with him who contends with you, and I will save your children. 26 I will feed those who oppress you with their own flesh, and they shall be drunk with their own blood as with sweet wine. All flesh shall know that I, the LORD, Am your Savior, and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”
Yahweh comes back with His reply. You do not mess with His kids. He will indeed fight for them, for He is the Mighty One, not only of princely Israel but of lowly Jacob. He will take away the captives from the mighty, He will deliver the prey of the terrible, He will contend with their contenders, and save their children. He will deliver them from all evil. Indeed the mighty and the terrible will rather fight each other, ‘eating each others flesh’, a vivid way of saying slaughtering each other, ‘drinking their own blood’, that is, satiating themselves with their bloodthirsty activities with each other.
