-- 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.