For I, Jehovah, thy God, hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.
Isaiah 41 reads like a courtroom, where God challenges the nations and their idols and points to a conqueror He is raising up. Then He turns to a small, frightened people — and verse 13 tells them whose hand is holding them.
The chapter first sets the promise against a background of empires on the move. Behind the conqueror who terrifies the nations stands the God who named him long in advance.
The warning follows that God has raised up a mighty conqueror from the East to punish the nations for their idolatry. A later chapter (Isa. 45:1) names him: Cyrus. Before his unstoppable power the nations will be like dry stubble... But behind Cyrus stands the directing power of the LORD. He knows the whole history of the generations from the beginning. The One who is the first – before all, and will be the last. Who but the LORD could foretell the coming of Cyrus 200 years before he came?
Yet raising up this conqueror did not mean God had changed toward Israel. Commentators note the careful distinction the chapter draws:
The honour God gave Cyrus along the way did not change His purposes or His love for Israel. Not Cyrus but Israel was His servant.
God is speaking to people who had failed. The promise does not hide that. It rests on God's own choice, not on their record.
They have failed badly, and God has disciplined them for their idolatry. Even so, they are the people of His sovereign choice. They are the descendants of Abraham, the friend of God. He "called" them out from the great ones of the earth and "chose" them to be His servant and witness. God may, indeed, chasten His people but He will not cast them off.
The enemies who fight this people will vanish. The reason is not their own strength.
Scripture also tells us that every nation opposing Israel will end in shame, confusion, and ruin. Those who make war on Israel will come to "nothing." This is not because Israel has any strength of its own. It is because the LORD, Israel's God, will "hold" and "help" Israel.
The next verse calls them "worm Jacob." The weakness is not hidden. It is stated — and then God takes that very weakness into His hand and uses it.
Left to himself Jacob is only a worm, and Israel is only a "few men," but the LORD is the Redeemer and Helper of Israel. So the LORD will not only keep Israel safe while He judges the nations. He will also make Israel an instrument in His hands to carry out that judgment on the nations that have opposed them.
That changes where a person looks for rest.
Who but He could have said through Isaiah, "Fear not, I am the one who helps you. Fear not, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel! I am the one who helps you, declares the LORD; your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel." We can find no solid ground of rest but in what He is to us, not in what we are for Him.
Writers reach for this promise in real distress. One pictures faith keeping watch through a dark night, waiting for morning.
It is thus that faith is strengthened by our gracious Lord, and as He holds the hand, and His strength is made perfect in our weakness, we will keep the watch and look out for the morning, "the morning without clouds;" cheering the darkness about us with faith's cry, "All's well."
The same words have carried people through their last hours. One writer retells the story of Christian, sinking into fear at the river of death, while a companion presses this promise on him:
He whispered words of faith and hope. He told him to look away from himself to the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to rest on the promise, "I, the LORD your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, 'Fear not, I am the one who helps you.'" As Christian looked to Jesus, the darkness melted away. The light of his Saviour's love shone into his soul again, and he crossed the river with a song of triumph.
- Whose hand. God holds the right hand of His people; He is not just near them; He grips them.
- Whose choice. The hand holds because of God's choice, not our performance. He may discipline His people, but He will never cast them off.
- Whose strength. Enemies come to nothing. Not because the people are strong, but because the LORD holds and helps.
- Whose usefulness. The hand that holds a "worm" also makes it an instrument in God's service.
- Whose rest. Solid rest lies in what He is to us, not in what we are for Him — in the dark night and at the last river alike.
Fear not, thou worm Jacob, ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith Jehovah, and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.
God calls His people a worm, then tells them not to be afraid. Why does comfort start with such a low name, and who is the Helper who gives it?
The word is not random abuse. Across Scripture it is a fixed picture of human weakness.
Scripture uses the worm as a picture of the extreme feebleness of man. Job 17:14; Job 25:6. In blessing Israel the LORD said, "Fear not, you worm Jacob," Isa. 41:14; and the Lord, to show the low state He was in, said, "I am a worm and not a man." Ps. 22:6.
Two names belonged to this people. God uses the older one, Jacob, and that choice says something about why He loves them at all.
God's love is free. When He pleads with His people in Malachi, He points them to the love He had shown to Jacob. He uses the name that reminds them of their father's natural character. That character was stamped on his descendants too, and it marked him before divine grace had made him Israel. Each name is used according to its own meaning when applied to his descendants... Here the name fits: it shows how little the "worm Jacob" had earned divine love.
The verse also calls them men of Israel — a phrase some translate "few men." Nothing in them is praised. Everything rests on who is speaking.
Left to himself Jacob is only a worm and Israel only a "few men" (see margin), but the LORD is the Redeemer and Helper of Israel.
The lesson reaches past Israel to every proud heart.
We can find no solid ground of rest except in what He is to us, not in what we are for Him. All who in their pride of heart refuse to believe, and who trust in themselves that they are righteous, will be beaten small. Only those who have Him for righteousness will rejoice and glory in Him.
God calls Himself their Redeemer — Goel. He has claimed that title before, and He backs it with what He has already done for them.
The LORD redeemed the nation of Israel out of Egypt both by price and by power (Ex. 15:6, 13, 16). As their Goel, He brought them out of slavery with His "stretched out arm and with great judgments" (Ex. 6:6). Centuries later the nation went into captivity. Again and again the LORD sent them promises of His deliverance by redemption. He called Himself "the LORD, your Redeemer (Goel)," and added other titles such as "the Holy One of Israel" (Isa. 41:14; Isa. 43:14; Isa. 44:6, 24...). In these and other prophecies, the LORD reminds His earthly people that He has the sole "right of their redemption."
The name God gives Jacob is the same word Christ used of Himself in Psalm 22. That is what the promise cost Him.
This nation is also called, "you worm Jacob": the "new threshing instrument" to "thresh the mountains, and beat them small" (vv. 14-15). Christ came to where they were to save them, and in His suffering He cried, "I am a worm" (Ps. 22:6). He had to take that way — to go to the cross, into the dust of death — before either we ourselves or Israel could be delivered.
The next verses turn it around. The worm becomes the tool God uses on the nations that scattered it, in a day still ahead.
So God will not only keep Israel safe during the judgment of the nations. Israel will also become an instrument in the hands of the LORD. Israel will carry out His judgment on the nations that have opposed Israel, and will "scatter" those who scattered the nation. So we are carried on to the days when Israel, redeemed from all her enemies, will rejoice in the LORD and glory in the Holy One of Israel.
The name has also become a picture of prayer itself.
Prayer is not a message to the moon... It is a petition addressed to Him who made the sun and moon and stars. It is turning to the ever-present and all-sufficient God. It is frailty fleeing to Omnipotence. It is misery at the door of mercy. It is "worm Jacob" at the foot of the ladder, and the top of that ladder in heaven.
- Worm. The word is Scripture's picture of extreme feebleness — God names the weakness instead of covering it.
- Jacob. He uses the name Jacob, not Israel, showing how little this people had earned the love shown to them.
- Redeemer. Against that emptiness stands the Goel, who alone has the right to buy His people back, and who takes the title "the Holy One of Israel."
- Cross. The Redeemer took that same word for Himself in Psalm 22. He went into the dust of death before Israel or we could be delivered.
- Threshing instrument. God turns the worm into the tool that beats mountains small, and it ends up rejoicing in the LORD. Our rest lies in what He is to us, never in what we are for Him.