Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye peoples from afar. Jehovah hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name.
A new speaker steps forward here. He does not address Israel first, but the distant coastlands and peoples far off. Two questions follow. Who is this Servant, named by God before His birth? And why does He call the far edges of the world, and not Israel?
Chapter 49 does not continue the argument of the chapters before it. Those chapters dealt with Babylon and with idols. Here the subject changes. One writer marks the exact span of the new division.
A new division of Isaiah opens here. It is no longer about Babylon and idolatry, or about a destruction seen as the overthrow of idol worship in the earth. Here it is the far deeper question of Christ Himself and His rejection by the Jews. We find that this portion runs from Isaiah 49:1 to the end of Isaiah 57... They were wicked in both ways. They were wicked in going after the false gods of the Gentiles, and more wicked still in rejecting their divine Messiah.
At first the words sound like the nation describing its own calling. The next verses give the speaker away.
Of whom is it written: "The LORD called me from the womb; from the body of my mother He named my name, … and said to me, You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified"? This, one would say, must be the nation. But at once we hear a voice that is not the nation's: "I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely my right is with the LORD, and my recompense with my God."
Israel held the title of servant. The title now passes.
Such was the purpose of God about Israel; but, Israel failing, Christ becomes the true Israel. It is the transition from the people to the Messiah in Whom alone it could be.
The verse says two things about the time before this Servant was born. God called Him, and God spoke His name. One writer points to where the Gospels record that second detail.
In the first four verses we hear the voice of Christ through the Spirit of prophecy. The Lord calls upon the Isles of the Gentiles, and the nations from afar, to listen to His words. All are to know that Jehovah has "called" Him, and that His Name was announced before His birth. These words came true in the Gospel of Matthew. There the angel says to Joseph about Mary that "she will bear a son, and you shall call His name JESUS." All the nations are to know that JESUS, the Servant of Jehovah, is the Saviour of the world.
The audience is the surprise. A Jewish reader expects a message about his own nation. The first line gives him something far wider.
So as we start Isaiah 49, and pass into the central section, we hear His voice at once in the spirit of prophecy, calling us to listen to Him. The Gospel of John presents Him to us as "the Word," the One in whom the whole mind of God is expressed. At the transfiguration the voice out of the cloud said, "Listen to Him." So we are not surprised that in prophecy He should say, "Listen … to Me." What might surprise us, and might well surprise an attentive Jewish reader, is that He should address His call to the "isles," and to "peoples from afar." The word, we understand, is in the plural. It means the distant nations, and not the people of Israel. But so it was. So the start of this new section shows that what He has to say, and what He will do, will be for the benefit of all men and not only for the people of Israel.
This opening line begins a story that runs to the end of the chapter. Jerusalem is listening in.
In this beautiful song of the prophet, we hear Messiah telling His own history, from the very womb of the Virgin to the throne of the kingdom. But Zion, as if she had been listening, complains like one forgotten. She does not find her own place in this history. Messiah answers this fear and this complaint with good and comforting words. This I may therefore call "Jesus and Jerusalem."
The road from the womb to the throne runs through death.
In this great passage we also learn that the final blessing comes only through the Servant of Jehovah becoming obedient to death. The atoning sufferings must come before the displayed glory.
- Servant named. God called Him before birth and named Him beforehand. The angel then told Joseph to call the child Jesus.
- Servant substituted. Israel held the title of servant and failed. Christ becomes the true Israel, and the prophecy moves from the people to the Messiah.
- Servant heard. His first word is a call to the distant coastlands and far peoples, not to Israel — a signal that what He does is for all men.
- Servant rejected. From this chapter to the end of chapter 57 the theme is Christ Himself and His rejection. That guilt runs deeper than Israel's earlier turning to idols.
- Servant glorified. Glory comes only after obedience to death: the atoning sufferings first, the displayed glory after.
And he hath made my mouth like a sharp sword, he hath concealed me under the shadow of his hand, and he hath made me a polished shaft in his quiver hath he hidden me.
Isaiah 49 opens with a servant telling how God prepared him: a mouth like a sharp sword, and an arrow kept hidden in a quiver. The question behind the whole chapter is who this Servant is — the nation of Israel, or the Messiah who takes Israel's place.
This verse stands at the start of a new division in the book. The subject has changed.
A new division of Isaiah opens here. It is no longer Babylon and idolatry... Here it is the far deeper question of Christ Himself and His rejection by the Jews... They were wicked in both ways: wicked in going after the false gods of other nations, and wicked yet more in rejecting their divine Messiah.
The same writer reads the two halves of the verse as preparation and protection. He also sees the servant's name pass from the nation to one Man. (The writers quoted here use an older translation, which reads "polished shaft" where the ESV has "polished arrow.")
There was a great providential preparation... "in the shadow of his hand he has hidden me, and made me a polished shaft; in his quiver he has hidden me." So there was protection too... Such was the purpose of God about Israel; but, Israel failing, Christ becomes the true Israel. It is the transition from the people to the Messiah in Whom alone it could be.
Both weapons stand for speech. One writer shows what each meant in the life of Jesus.
As Man, in the service of God in this world, the Lord in spirit can say, "And He has made my mouth like a sharp sword" (verse 2). His word reached into the innermost corners of heart and conscience while He was speaking on earth. It brought divine blessing to many, and stirred up the opposition of those who were against God and His Son. He also said, "in the shadow of His hand He has hidden me," for He was always conscious of God's protection while men under Satan's influence bitterly attacked Him. He was also "a polished shaft," whose word reached not only those where He was, but reached into the distance, even to us in this day. It was a weapon that brought down the power of the enemy — a secret weapon, hidden in God's armoury, which He brought out to defeat the enemy at the time He had appointed.
That same word also cuts the hearer.
The One who is the Saviour will also convict us of our sins, and so show our need of the Saviour. His word will be like a sharp sword and a polished shaft. It pierces the conscience and reveals the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
The verse hides Him twice over: first in the hand, then in the quiver. One writer finds an order there, and a pattern for anyone God will use.
In Isaiah 49 He says, "In the shadow of His hand He has hidden me, and made me a polished shaft; in His quiver He has hidden me." We must be in the "hand" — the place of shaping — before we are in the quiver, ready to be used. Then He comes out brightly polished, we might say, and says, "I delight to do your will, O my God." That is the flexibility of a servant, and we see it in Christ, who adapted Himself to every service on earth.
An arrow in a quiver has not been shot yet. So the picture looks ahead to the day He appears.
His words will cut like a sword and pierce like an arrow when He comes out from the Divine quiver. He will appear as the true Servant of God and the true Israel — that is, "Prince of God." As the earlier chapters have shown, God had called the nation Israel to serve Him, but it had failed completely. This true Israel is called from the womb and made a "polished shaft" to fly straight to the mark as directed. Of Him, Jehovah says, "I will be glorified."
The shadow of God's hand covers more than the Servant.
The believer's place of safety is no longer a sheepfold on earth, as in former days. It is the hand of the Good Shepherd. There, in the shadow of His hand (compare Isaiah 49:2; Isaiah 51:16) they are securely hidden from every enemy. That hand of unbeatable might... will surround the frail and feeble sheep and protect them from every attack of the enemy.
- Turn. The verse opens a section about Christ Himself and His rejection by His own people, not about idols and Babylon.
- Transfer. Israel was called to be God's servant and failed; the titles and the task pass to the Messiah, the true Israel.
- Formed. Hidden in the hand first, in the quiver second: shaping comes before service.
- Fired. The sword is His speech and the arrow His word. It cut consciences then, reaches us now, and will strike in the open when He comes out of the quiver.
- Sheltered. The shadow that covered the Servant now covers the sheep — the hand that hid Him is the hand that holds them.
And he said unto me, Thou art my servant, Israel, in whom I will glorify myself.
In verse 3 God gives His Servant a nation's name, "Israel," and says He will be glorified in Him. Commentators see a turning point here: the nation called to serve God had failed, and both the service and the glory now pass to one Person.
One writer explains what the name means, and what follows if the Servant is read as the nation and not as Christ.
It is to Him, to this same Servant, God says in verse 3, "You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified." This is the only place in our section where God calls His Servant "Israel." The name, as we know, means "Prince of God." A believing heart sees Christ in this verse. But the rationalistic critics would shut Him out, despite the verses before and after. They would make the Servant the nation of Israel here, and all through. If that were true, then it is the nation in verse 5 that restores Jacob, and in Isaiah 53 makes atonement.
The Hebrew wording itself is disputed. One writer weighs it, then names the question that really matters.
The question is this: can asher-b'ka (word for word, "whom in you") be translated "you in whom"? … I am not sure we are justified in adding "you are he" before "in whom." What matters is the question of who "My servant" is here — Israel, or Christ the blessed Lord? This is plainly the transition point between Israel and the Lord as Servant; verse 4 makes it clear.
One writer traces this move through three names Israel once carried.
When Jehovah said "You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified" (Isa. 49:3), He was speaking to Messiah. In Him God took up the history of Israel afresh for His own glory. Whether seen as God's son (Ex. 4:22-23), as God's vine (Isa. 5), or God's servant (Isa. 49), the history of Israel begins anew in Messiah. He brings God pleasure and glory in the very things where Israel brought God sorrow and dishonoured His Name.
Another writer applies the sword and the hidden arrow of verse 2 to this same Servant.
His words will cut like a sword and pierce like an arrow when He comes out from the divine quiver. He will appear as the true Servant of God and the true Israel, that is, "Prince of God." The earlier chapters have shown that God called the national Israel to serve Him, and that it failed completely. God declares that He called this true Israel from the womb and made Him a "polished shaft" to fly straight as directed. Of Him Jehovah says, "I will be glorified." We can now say that God has been glorified in Him, and that He will yet be glorified in Him in a supreme and public way.
The next verse sounds like failure. One writer sets that beside the glory God gave Him.
Look again at the servant "in whom I will be glorified" in Isaiah 49. As far as Jacob and Israel are concerned, He seems to have spent His strength for nothing and in vain. But "though Israel is not gathered, yet I shall be glorious in the eyes of Jehovah." And so He is. For "God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow… and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
One writer puts God's glory and our salvation in order, and names the mistake of turning that round.
Our hearts would gladly treat what puts away our sins as the highest view of the cross. This is a mistake. God's glory is the first thing; our salvation is the second. To maintain God's glory was the chief, the dearest object of the heart of Christ. He pursued this object from first to last, with unwavering purpose and unflinching faithfulness.
The Servant bearing Israel's name does not cancel what God promised the nation.
Jehovah had said to them, "You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified." In fulfilment of this, they will yet become "a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord." Then "righteousness and praise" will "spring forth before all the nations." This will not come from keeping the law, but from being clothed with Jehovah's robe of righteousness. That which has failed under the law is yet to be accomplished in grace.
- Named — God gives His Servant the nation's name, "Israel," which means "Prince of God." This section names Him so only here.
- Transferred — Israel failed as son, vine and servant. The history begins again in Messiah, who brings God pleasure where the nation brought Him dishonour.
- Debated — the Hebrew line is hard. One writer will not force it, and lets verse 4 settle who the Servant is.
- Glorified — the Servant's work looked spent for nothing. Yet God has highly exalted Him, and the glory promised here will yet be public.
- Restored — God's glory comes first and our salvation second. The nation itself will still become a crown of glory — by grace, not by law.
-- And I said, I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought and in vain; nevertheless my judgment is with Jehovah, and my work with my God.
In Isaiah 49 a Servant speaks about His own work, and by verse 4 He says it has all come to nothing. That raises two questions: who is speaking, and how can a mission from God end in emptiness?
Who is speaking here? The nation that carried the servant's name had proved unfaithful.
Isaiah 49 presses the heavier and more serious charge. The prophet shows us the deep guilt of the returned remnant, who rejected their own true Messiah. Both Testaments share the same principle: the faithful One takes the place of the unfaithful "servant." Messiah the True Vine replaces Israel the empty vine. Messiah takes up Israel's place as Jehovah's servant, the One in whom God will be glorified. But because His people reject Him, He speaks the words of verse 4.
His labour was real and His strength really was spent. Anyone watching the end of His path would have called it failure.
How often in this fallen world have the servants of God had to taste the bitterness of defeat and apparent failure. It seems to have been the rule rather than the exception. Our Lord Himself is the supreme example. He came, as the Apostle Paul states, "A Minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers" (Rom. 15:8). But "the circumcision" rejected Him, and from that standpoint His mission ended in failure.
The ESV puts Paul's words this way: "Christ became a servant to the circumcised" — that is, a servant to the Jewish people.
One writer sums it up: "At the end of His path what was there to show for all His labours? He was left alone, betrayed by one of His disciples, denied by another, abandoned by everyone, and crucified as a criminal" (An Outline of Sound Words).
The second half of the verse is not resignation.
But to all this the perfect Servant answered, "Yet surely My judgment is with the Lord, and My work with My God." In Isaiah 53 we read, "He was taken from prison and from judgment." Acts 8 gives this as, "In His humiliation His judgment was taken away." In condemning Him, men broke every principle of right judgment. But He was content to keep silence before His judges and to move His judgment to the highest Court in the universe. He knew that His vindication in the presence of Jehovah was sure.
These lines follow an older translation. The ESV reads, "yet surely my right is with the LORD, and my recompense with my God."
A servant can care about results without living on them.
The Lord's food as a Servant was to do the work given Him, whatever the results might be. Was He unmoved by results? Far from it. What true servant should be? Compare these words of the Lord in Isaiah with His words in John. He was not indifferent to the results of His ministry in Israel. Yet the success of His labours was not what fed His soul.
The rejection did not shrink the mission; it opened it out.
Christ was set before the people, and they utterly rejected Him. That proved that unbelieving Israel would not be gathered. God foreknew the failure of Messiah's mission, and Isaiah 49:4 and the verses that follow acknowledge it fully. But Jehovah's answer opens up His counsels and purposes. They are being fully carried out in this acceptable time, as He calls out people from among Jews and Gentiles into the church. This remarkable prophecy shows us the exact order of events recorded in the New Testament. First, Christ's mission to Israel fails for a time. Then a suffering and rejected Messiah is received and glorified in heaven, and made God's salvation to the ends of the earth.
The comfort of this verse reaches anyone whose service looks wrecked.
Every servant of the Lord who is in earnest knows well the discouragement of the apparent wreck of what he is doing. The lowly and the humble are especially prone to this discouragement, but the proud and self-satisfied know nothing of it. Yet God does not want us to be discouraged, even though all appears to be in vain... Ours to do His bidding, His to give success or failure, but even the failure is no failure; it is part of the ways of God to bring about His purpose.
- Servant — The nation failed in the servant's place. Messiah takes it and speaks here as the faithful One.
- Spent — His labour and strength ended in visible defeat: alone, betrayed, denied, crucified.
- Surrendered — He does not defend Himself. He moves His case to God's court, where His vindication is sure.
- Sustained — He felt the empty result, yet the success of His work was never what fed His soul.
- Spread — The apparent failure is the turning point. Rejected in Israel, He becomes God's salvation to the ends of the earth. So no faithful worker's labour is finally wasted.
And now, saith Jehovah, that formed me from the womb to be his servant, that I should bring Jacob again to him; (though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorified in the eyes of Jehovah, and my God shall be my strength;)
Isaiah 49 opens with a Servant who speaks in the first person. God set Him apart before birth and sent Him to gather Jacob. Verse 5 is the turning point. His mission to Israel seems to fail, yet God honours Him and becomes His strength.
Earlier in the chapter God calls His servant "Israel." Commentators say the key is the shift from the nation to one Person.
The chapter opens with a call to the islands to listen... "And He said to me, You are my servant Israel, in whom I will glorify myself" (vv. 1-3). Such was the purpose of God about Israel; but, Israel failing, Christ becomes the true Israel. It is the transition from the people to the Messiah in whom alone it could be.
The same writer adds that this first failure is not the end of God's purpose. It leads to something larger.
Christ substitutes Himself for Israel. They had held the name and the responsibility of the servant; Christ becomes the true and righteous servant of God, when the other proved false... God's purposes seem to fail at first because of man's wickedness. That failure only settles them more firmly, and gives them a more glorious form and display in the end.
The Servant's confidence rests on who formed Him, and on where His strength comes from.
He knew that He had been formed from the womb to be the LORD's servant. God was His strength for His service. And even if Israel was not gathered, yet He Himself should be glorious in the eyes of the LORD.
The ESV reads "that Israel might be gathered to him." Older versions read "though Israel be not gathered." The old manuscripts and translations are split.
Isaiah 49:5 — the text of the Authorised Version gives one reading, "be not gathered"; the margin has the other, "gathered to him." The Vulgate here supports the Authorised Version. Some manuscripts, with the Septuagint, the Targum, and Aquila, read as the margin, without the negative.
The writers here follow the older reading. They tie it to what happened when Christ came.
Christ was presented to the people, and they utterly rejected Him. That proved that unbelieving Israel would not be gathered — "How often would I have gathered your children together… and you would not!" (Matt. 23:37). God foreknew the failure of Messiah's mission... This remarkable prophecy shows us the exact order of events recorded in the New Testament. First comes the temporary failure of Christ's mission to Israel. Then a suffering and rejected Messiah is received and glorified in heaven, and made to be God's salvation to the ends of the earth.
God's verdict on the Servant is the opposite of man's.
God completely cancels man's thought and judgment. The humbled Man — the discredited Prophet of Nazareth — walked His way to Calvary among the jeering crowd, abandoned by His disciples and mocked by men. Yet He was glorious in the eyes of the LORD. He was about to lay the foundation for the structure of glory yet to come.
God has not kept that honour hidden.
Yet the Servant glorified God, and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross. God has highly exalted Him and given Him a name which is above every name. The heavens have been opened, so that by faith we may look up and see Jesus crowned with glory.
God's reply widens the Servant's work far beyond Israel.
At His first coming, the mission of the Lord seemed to fail. The tribes of Jacob were not restored, and the preserved of Israel were not brought back to blessing. Yet He knew that, even if His work looked like failure, He was "glorious in the eyes of the Lord." He had completed the work God gave Him to do. Israel will indeed be gathered again when the Lord comes back. Meanwhile there is a still greater work, for God says to Him, "I will also give You for a light to the Gentiles, that You may be My salvation to the end of the earth."
- Formed — God shaped the Servant from the womb for one task: to bring Jacob back to Him. Israel had held that title and failed. Christ takes the place and fills it.
- Refused — His own people turned Him away. Kelly finds the whole order of events here: a rejected Messiah, glorified in heaven, then salvation to the ends of the earth.
- Honoured — God cancels man's judgment on Him. The discredited Prophet walking to Calvary was, at that very moment, glorious in the eyes of the LORD.
- Strengthened — He does not draw on results for confidence, but on God: "my God has become my strength."
- Widened — The refusal did not shrink His mission. It enlarged it. God gives Him as a light to the Gentiles, His salvation to the end of the earth.
-- and he saith, It is a small thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel; I have even given thee for a light of the nations, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.
God speaks these words to His Servant. The Servant has just said His work seemed to come to nothing, and God's answer is not a smaller mission but a far larger one — which raises the question of who this Servant is, and what becomes of Israel once the nations come into view.
Israel had held the place of God's servant and had failed in it. Here the One speaking is the Messiah, standing where Israel stood.
"And I said (says Christ), I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing." Christ substitutes Himself for Israel. They had been the servant in name and in responsibility. Christ becomes the true and righteous servant of God, when the other proved false.
The same writer finds this exchange all through the Bible, Old and New.
It is a striking instance of a principle common to the New Testament as well as the Old, the replacement of the faithless "servant" by the faithful One, of Israel the empty vine by Messiah the True Vine.
The phrase does not make Israel's restoration small in itself. God measures it against something wider.
God proclaims Him here as Israel's Restorer. Important as that is, God says it is a small thing in comparison. This one nation is not the only one that will come directly under Him. All the nations shall have Him as their Light. So, right to the ends of the earth, our Lord Jesus Christ shall be God's Salvation.
The mission grows at the very point where Israel refuses Him.
Israel rejected the Messiah. Yet He would not only be "glorious in the eyes of the Lord"; He would also secure blessing for a far greater company than Israel, and His God would be His strength in reaching this great end.
The direction of the mission changes. The light now goes out to the Gentiles — the nations outside Israel — and writers say this turn shapes the present day.
The original thought was to gather Israel, but Israel would not be gathered. Then, says God, That is too small a thing; I will save the nations also. But Christ is first given as a light to the Gentiles. It is going out rather than gathering in. At any rate, that is the turn the passage takes now, under the gospel. While Israel is not yet gathered, Christ becomes a light to the Gentiles.
The second half of the verse does not cancel the first. Writers keep both, and set them in order.
God's Servant came to do a work for Israel, and God would carry it out in His own good time. Israel would be regathered for the millennial day, the tribes of Jacob raised up, and the preserved of Israel restored. But something would also be done among the Gentiles, both in the day in which we live and in the millennium.
The two titles God gives here — light, and salvation — are the very words an old man used when the infant Jesus was brought into the temple in Jerusalem.
Here we see Him as The Servant; the Light, and the Salvation of God. What a wonderful Saviour! Mary took Him to the temple. There a man named Simeon, one of the faithful few left in Israel and "a servant" of the Lord's, rejoiced to see in Him God's "Salvation" and "the glory of His people Israel." He also saw in Him "a Light for revelation of the Gentiles," that they, brought out of their darkness and ignorance, might be revealed in God's marvellous light.
When the Jews would not hear him, Paul quoted this verse and called it a command. God spoke the words to Christ, yet Paul takes them as spoken to himself.
What had this to do with Paul and Barnabas? Everything. Without question the prophet has Christ in view, and some might want to limit the words to Christ alone. The Holy Spirit does not, and so He extends their reach to Paul and Barnabas… Christian faith takes for itself what God said to Him.
Why did Paul see it when others did not? One writer gives a simple reason.
The Jews would not listen to Paul and Barnabas, so they think of the word of the Lord… I doubt anyone else would have seen that but Paul. The reason was simply this: his heart was with the Lord.
- Servant — Israel failed in the role. Christ steps into it as the true and righteous Servant, the True Vine in place of the empty vine.
- Small — Raising up Jacob is called a small thing, not because it is minor. God answers rejection by widening the work, not shrinking it.
- Light — God gives the rejected One as light to the nations. Simeon used that very title over Him in the temple.
- Salvation — The reach runs "to the end of the earth." The mission turns from gathering Israel in to going out, and that is the work of today.
- Command — Paul read a prophecy about Christ as an order for himself and turned to the Gentiles. What God says of Christ, faith takes for those who belong to Him.