So the ransomed of Jehovah shall return, and come to Zion with singing; and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads they shall obtain gladness and joy; sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
In Isaiah 51 God speaks comfort to a small, discouraged group of His people, and they call back to Him, "Awake, awake." In verse 11 their faith stops pleading and starts predicting. Who are the ransomed? Why does their road end at Zion, the hill of Jerusalem? And why is the joy everlasting, when every earlier rescue faded?
The verse is not a fresh promise dropped into the chapter. It is the answer of the remnant — the faithful few left among God's people. They echo what He has already said and what He has already done.
(V. 11). The remnant have listened to the LORD's promise of future blessing. They have the assurance of God's power in the past. So they can say with confidence, "the ransomed of the LORD shall return and come to Zion with singing."
Just before this, the people call on God's "arm" to wake up and act as it did long ago. Their rescue out of Egypt becomes the sample of a larger rescue still to come.
So comes the call of verse 9: "Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD." ... It was He who cut Rahab in pieces. Rahab means "Arrogance," a name given to Egypt as an insult. He dried up the sea when God brought the people out of slavery under Moses. When He puts on strength and acts in the future day, the deliverance will be far greater. The ransomed of the Lord will return to Zion with singing. Their joy will be everlasting, not brief and fleeting like every joyful deliverance so far in this sinful world. We today may call on the arm of the Lord to awake. Only the words we use are, "Come, Lord Jesus."
The word "ransomed" means a price was paid. Redemption has two sides here. The rescue still ahead rests on blood already shed.
This will be a work of redemption by power. But, as we know, its righteous basis will be the redemption by blood accomplished at His first coming. Today the Jewish people still reject that righteous basis, while they hope for national deliverance. It will be different when their Redeemer does appear in power.
The language is so glowing that some read it as poetry about inward change only. William Kelly presses for something more solid. He is describing the millennium — the thousand-year reign of Christ on earth.
It is the day when the wilderness will rejoice and blossom like the garden of Eden. It is the day when the ransomed of the Lord will come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy on their heads, and all sorrow and sighing will flee away. ... Many have been inclined to take the prophetic accounts of the millennium as figures of speech. But they must allow that these figures may be fulfilled far more fully than they suppose. In other words, I take the glowing Old Testament accounts of the millennium as pictures of real and abundant blessings on earth.
Right after verse 11, God answers the fear behind that cry. His answer compares two sizes.
(Vv. 12–16). In response to this appeal, Jehovah comforts the remnant, and urges them not to fear man or "the fury of the oppressor". Man is only like grass that perishes; Jehovah who comforts them is the Maker of the heavens and the earth. So He will set His captive exiles free and feed His starving people. He can protect them, plant them in the land, and say of them, "You are my people."
The same closing line ends Isaiah 35, and one writer uses it to measure our own grief. He quotes 1 Peter 5:10, which the ESV renders "after you have suffered a little while." Suffering is real, but it is measured. The joy is not.
Sufferings are short. "After you have suffered a while" (1 Peter 5:10) — the Greek word means "a little." Our sufferings may be lasting, not everlasting. ... "Sorrow and sighing shall flee away" (Isa. 35:10). It is only a little while, and the saints will have their release; they will weep no more, suffer no more.
- Listen first. Faith speaks second. The remnant hear God's promise and remember His power. Only then do they say what will happen.
- Past power. The arm that cut Egypt's arrogance in pieces and dried the sea is the arm called to awake again. The Red Sea was only a sample.
- Paid price. The rescue ahead is redemption by power. It rests on redemption by blood, already accomplished at Christ's first coming.
- Real place. The songs on Zion mean real, abundant blessing on earth, not only a picture of inward change.
- Lasting joy. Every past rescue gave joy that faded. Here sorrow has a limit, sighing flees for good, and the joy never ends.
I, [even] I, am he that comforteth you who art thou, that thou fearest a man that shall die, and the son of man that shall become as grass;
Isaiah 51 opens with the people crying out for God's arm to wake up and act, as it once did at the Red Sea. Verse 12 is His answer. Instead of a display of power, He names Himself as the One who comforts, and sets that against the frail man they fear.
The verse answers the plea of verses 9 and 10. There God's people point back to the rescue from Egypt and ask God to act again.
First, they call for the power of Jehovah to assert itself against their mighty foes, as of old against proud Egypt (vv. 9, 10). They predict their deliverance in verse 11, and Jehovah's reply to their trembling hearts comes in verses 12-16, in words as moving as they are majestic.
The doubled "I, I am he" presses God's own identity on them.
The verse sets two figures side by side. One is a man who dies, a "son of man" who is like grass. The other is the Maker of the heavens and the earth. Fear is what happens when we stop measuring the two.
Their tendency was, as ours is today, to keep their eyes on man and to fear him as they watch all his evil ways and activities. But men die, and the One who comforts His people is the Maker of the heavens and the earth. When God acts, where will the fury of the oppressor be? God meant these striking verses to put heart into His people in all ages. They have done so in the past, and no doubt they are doing so today, especially where believers face "the fury of the oppressor."
The question "who are you?" is sharper than it first sounds. God is not only correcting a wrong view of the enemy. He shows what fear does to the person who fears: the next line says he has forgotten the God who made everything.
In the things of God, natural courage will fail. Only His divine power and grace can hold up the soul and keep it from fear... Isaiah 51:12, 13 shows something striking. Fear, no less than the other evils we have noted, is the product of mere pride, little as we might think it so. It asks: "Who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, of the son of man who is made like grass, and have forgotten the LORD, your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth?"
So fear of man is not only weakness. At root it is pride.
Other Scriptures name the same danger. Fear of people is not harmless. It traps you.
"The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is safe" (Proverbs 29:25). The fear of man is born of unbelief. The Christian who fears man shows clearly that he is not looking to the Lord, but to man. The fear of man surely brings a snare, it leads to pleasing men and praising men.
So the cure is a matter of where the eyes rest. One writer turns God's question back on the reader:
To the winds and waves, or to Him who walks in majesty upon the swelling tide? To the scattered flock, or to the Shepherd of the sheep? To the saints, or to the Saviour?... Is God or is man the commanding object of your vision?
"I am he who comforts you" is not a passing kindness. It describes who God is.
God is, in a special way, the Comforter of His people (Isa. 51:12)... to say that God comforts us in all our troubles is only another way of saying that He comforts in a manner worthy of Himself... The number and variety of our troubles are simply the appointed means of showing more fully the endless comforts of His love.
Commentators also read this promise as still ahead. God will yet comfort Zion, after a time of deep mourning for the faithful among the Jewish people (Arend Remmers).
- Comforter — they cry for raw power. God answers by naming Himself, twice over, as the One who comforts. Comfort comes before rescue.
- Compared — the man you dread dies and is like grass; the One comforting you stretched out the heavens. Fear is a failure to measure.
- Forgotten — to fear man is to forget your Maker. Commentators trace that fear to pride and unbelief, not weakness alone.
- Snared — fear of man traps you into pleasing men. Trust is the way out, and it changes where you look.
- Certain — this comfort is God's settled character, and a promise still ahead. God will yet comfort Zion, and the fury of the oppressor will be gone.
and forgettest Jehovah thy Maker, who hath stretched out the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth; and thou art afraid continually all the day because of the fury of the oppressor, when he prepareth to destroy? And where is the fury of the oppressor?
These words are God's reply to frightened people. They are afraid of a man who will die. The verse names the cause of that fear: they have forgotten the One who made the sky above them and the ground under their feet.
Verses 12 to 16 are God's answer to a cry for His power to act. It runs from comfort to protection.
In response to this appeal, the Lord comforts the remnant, and urges them not to fear man or "the fury of the oppressor." Man is only like grass that perishes. The Lord who comforts them is the Maker of the heavens and the earth. So He will set His captive exiles free and feed His starving people. He can still the waves that roar. He can make His people a testimony by putting His words into their mouths. He can protect His people, plant them in the land, and say of them, "You are my people."
The people had cried out for God's arm to wake up, as if He had gone to sleep. The charge comes back the other way round.
It was the Eternal One who comforted them. They had forgotten Him. Had He gone to sleep and forgotten? He never slumbers or sleeps, and His power is right there. Now that Zion is awake to know it, He calls on Zion to awake, for all was mercy now. Verse 12 is the Lord's answer. He asks how Israel could be afraid of a man, when He comforted her. He had pleaded her cause.
The verse describes dread that runs "continually all the day" at an enemy who is getting ready to destroy. Then it asks where that fury is.
They tended, as we tend today, to keep their eyes on man and to fear, as they watched all his evil tendencies and activities. But men die, and the One who comforts His people is the Maker of heaven and earth. When God acts, where will the fury of the oppressor be? These striking verses are meant to put heart into the people of God in every age.
Fear looks like weakness, not pride. One writer starts from Peter's failure and reads these verses as exposing something else underneath.
What powerful enemy so weakened Peter, this eager, loving follower of the Lord Jesus? Simply "the fear of man." In the things of God, natural courage will fail. Only God's divine power and grace can sustain us and keep us from fear. "When I am afraid, I put my trust in you" (Ps. 56:3). "I will trust, and will not be afraid" (Isa. 12:2). Most strikingly, Isaiah 51:12-13 shows where fear comes from. It is the product of mere pride, no less than the other evils we have noted, little as we might think so. Yet divine grace did, and does, wonderfully restore.
Another writer puts the same fear down to a different root:
The fear of man is born of unbelief. The Christian who fears man shows clearly that he is not looking to the Lord, but to man. The fear of man certainly brings a snare; it leads to pleasing men and praising men.
The two acts named in this verse return three verses later, and the change between them is the point.
In verse 13 we have the heavens and the earth created, but in verse 16 we have them filled. The One who created them is the One who will fill them.
The verse's charge is forgetting God. One writer turns that into a question for today.
My soul, where are you directing your gaze today? To the hills, or higher? To the winds and waves, or to Him who walks in majesty on the swelling tide? To the scattered flock, or to the Shepherd of the sheep? Which of the two? Is God or man the commanding object of your vision?
- Forgetting — The verse names the cause of fear as memory failure. The people cried out as though God had fallen asleep; in fact they were the ones who had forgotten Him.
- Maker — What they forgot is the biggest fact there is. The One who comforts them stretched out the heavens and laid the earth's foundations.
- Man — In His place they saw a man who dies, and grass that withers. Commentators trace fear of him to pride, and to unbelief that looks at people instead of the Lord.
- Fury — The oppressor's rage feels endless, "all the day." But when God acts, where is that fury?
- Filled — The heavens and earth He made in verse 13, He fills in verse 16. The Creator finishes what He started, and His people are part of it.
He that is bowed down shall speedily be loosed, and he shall not die in the pit, nor shall his bread fail.
These words are God's answer to people who lived in daily dread of their oppressor — a prisoner bent low under his chains, promised release before he dies. Who is this prisoner, when is he set free, and what does the promise of unfailing bread add to it?
In this chapter the people cry out to God for power, and God answers. One writer places our verse inside the answer, not inside the plea.
In verse 11 they predict their deliverance. The LORD's reply to their trembling hearts comes in verses 12–16. It is as full of deep feeling as it is of grandeur.
The verse makes three promises. The chains come off. The prisoner does not die in the pit. The bread does not run out. One writer sets the freedom and the food side by side, and shows what they rest on.
In response to this appeal, the LORD comforts the remnant, and urges them not to fear man or "the fury of the oppressor". Man is only like grass that perishes; the LORD who comforts them is the Maker of the heavens and the earth. So He will set His captive exiles free, and He will feed His starving people.
Note the order. God frees the captive because of who God is, not because the captive's case looks hopeful.
Fear of the oppressor is the fear this verse answers, and it answers with a timetable: release comes soon. One writer turns that promise on the fears of readers today.
In verse 12 and onwards there is another call to the godly. Their tendency was, as ours is today, to keep their eyes on man and to fear as they watch all his evil tendencies and activities. But men die, and the One who comforts His people is the Maker of heaven and earth. When God acts, where will the fury of the oppressor be? These striking verses are meant to put heart into the saints of God in all ages. They have done so in the past, and no doubt they are doing so today, especially where believers face "the fury of the oppressor."
Here commentators differ. Some tie the passage to Israel's past history; others to the time when Christ first came. Kelly rejects both. He reads it of a future remnant of Israel, whom God will lift out of their degradation into blessing.
No wonder interpreters are so divided. These appeals and answers grow more earnest, and some apply them to the past history of the Jews, others to the time of the first coming. Neither view matches the language of the Holy Spirit. He looks forward to the gradual progress of the LORD's dealings with the future remnant. He looks to His work in their souls as they rise from their degradation or grasp their calling.
The promise does not stop at an open prison door. The God who feeds the starving goes on to call them His own, and one writer carries that word across to believers under pressure now.
He can protect His people. He can plant them in the land and say of them, "You are my people." The same is true of the overcomer in this day of ruin — the one who keeps His word and does not deny His name. In the day of glory the Lord can say of him, "I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God … and my own new name" (Rev. 3:12).
- Fear: the trouble here is fear of a man who dies — while the God who comforts is the Maker of heaven and earth. Measure the two rightly and the fear shrinks.
- Answer: verse 14 is not the captive's prayer but God's reply, spoken into trembling hearts as part of His answer in verses 12–16.
- Freedom: the chains come off soon. The captive does not die in the pit, and God's timing, not the oppressor's, sets how long the holding lasts.
- Bread: release comes with supply. God feeds the starving, so freedom does not end in a second, slower death.
- Owned: the deliverance ends with God saying "You are my people." The same voice promises the overcomer today a new name.
And I am Jehovah thy God, who raiseth the sea, so that its waves roar Jehovah of hosts is his name.
God speaks here in the middle of a message meant to steady a frightened people. He answers their fear with His own name and His mastery of the sea. The question is simple. The One who stirs the ocean calls Himself the LORD of hosts, and He calls Himself their God. So what is left for them to fear?
The words belong to a reply. Earlier in the chapter the people begged God to act as He acted against Egypt long ago. This verse is part of His answer.
In the same way the Spirit now answers, as it were, in the remnant. First they call for the power of Jehovah to assert itself against their mighty foes, as it did long ago against proud Egypt… They foretell their deliverance in verse 11. Jehovah's reply to their trembling hearts comes in verses 12-16. His words are as full of feeling as of grandeur.
The sea is not only water. Commentators read the roaring waves as a picture of the nations in uproar. The verse shows who stands above that uproar.
God is far above the actions and agitations of men. The nations are like the sea with its roaring waves, but He divides them at His pleasure.
The title at the end of the verse is not decoration. It is a name loaded with power, and Isaiah uses it again and again.
It occurs over 300 times in the Old Testament… Isaiah alone uses this beautiful title 60 times. It carries the thought of mighty, irresistible power and resource in the hands of the Lord.
Two things about the name fit this verse. It first appears when God's people were at their lowest. And the "hosts" it names include the forces of nature — the roaring sea among them.
We do not meet with this name until 1 Samuel 1:3. It came in with prophetic testimony. Faith took hold of Jehovah's glory at a time when Israel had corrupted itself and was weak and low. Scripture shows that there is a mighty heavenly host, with rulers and powers in the unseen world. God is the God of them all, as well as God of all the elements of nature, which He has often used to punish His enemies.
Israel went back to one event in every trouble. What God did at the Red Sea became the measure of what He could still do.
If they asked how God had acted for them most openly, they would think at once of the power that brought them out of the land of Egypt. This was always their comfort in the middle of disasters and troubles. The God who divided the Red Sea and brought them across the Jordan was equal to any difficulty that might ever attack them again.
That memory was never the ceiling. The same writer says Israel also lives "in the anticipation of a still greater display that will outshine whatever was seen of old." The Red Sea was a sample, not the whole.
The God who holds the sea also holds the sky. One writer points there when people treat God's promises to Israel as only a picture.
Those who spiritualise everything that has to do with Israel would do well to look up at those heavens. Let them realise this: just as surely as the sun and moon will last, so surely will Israel remain a nation before God.
- The name is the answer. God does not argue His people out of fear. He gives them His name, and that name carries "mighty, irresistible power and resource."
- The name arrives in weakness. "LORD of hosts" first appears when Israel had corrupted itself and was in a weak and low state — it is a title for bad days, not good ones.
- The hosts include the sea. God rules the unseen powers and the elements of nature alike. He has often used those elements to punish His enemies, so the roaring waves are a tool in His hand, not a threat outside His control.
- The sea means the nations. God stands far above the agitations of men; the nations rage like waves, and He divides them at His pleasure.
- The proof is history, the promise is bigger. The God who divided the Red Sea "was equal to any difficulty that might ever attack them again" — and a greater display is still to come.
And I have put my words in thy mouth, and covered thee with the shadow of my hand, to plant the heavens, and to lay the foundations of the earth, and to say unto Zion, Thou art my people.
Isaiah 51 ends a long word of comfort to people who are afraid of men, and verse 16 answers with words in a mouth and a hand held over a head. Two questions follow: who is covered here, and how can God plant heavens He already made?
The verses just before it are a plea. God's people call on His power to wake up and act as it once did, and this verse belongs to His reply.
"Awake, awake!" The remnant now cry to the arm of the Lord: put on strength and make a way for us as You did long ago. "I, I am He who comforts you," Jehovah replies. I will plant the very heavens, as well as "lay the foundations of the earth"; that is why I have preserved you with and in Christ; "you are My people" (vv. 9-16).
Commentators differ here. Vine reads the preserving as God's care for His people. Others take the "you" of this verse as the Arm of the Lord Himself, the One introduced earlier in the chapter.
God is far above the actions and agitations of men. The nations are like the sea with its roaring waves, but He divides them at His pleasure. In verse 16 the One addressed is the Arm of the Lord. He is the One who speaks on God's behalf, with the divine word in His mouth. He is also the One who acts beneath the divine hand. The verse then gives the result of that speaking and acting.
The same picture appears earlier in Isaiah, and it reaches to the safety of the believer now.
For the believer, the place of safety is no longer pictured by a sheep pen on earth, as in former days. It is pictured by the hand of the Good Shepherd. There, in the shadow of His hand (compare Isa. 49:2; Isa. 51:16), they are securely hidden from every foe. That hand of unbeatable might will surround the frail and feeble sheep and protect them from every attack of the enemy. It is the hand that redeemed the ancient people from the iron slavery of Egypt, kept and defended them through the desert, and brought them into the promised land flowing with milk and honey.
Three results follow the covering. Older translations read "to plant the heavens" where the ESV has "establishing the heavens." The first result is startling, because God made the heavens long ago. So "plant" must mean something other than create.
The reference here is not to creation, for that was mentioned in verse 13, but, as we believe, to what God is doing today. The Lord Jesus Himself said, "Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up" (Matt. 15:13), showing that to plant is a figure of speech for establishing in a place of blessing. By the gospel today men are being called out from the nations for His name, and theirs is a "heavenly calling" (Heb. 3:1). The coming age will display that the heavens have been planted by the grace of God in this age.
Earlier in the chapter the same heavens and earth are already in view.
In verse 13 we have the heavens and the earth created, but in verse 16 we have them filled. The One who created them is the One who will fill them. He will plant the heavens with the church and lay the foundations of the earth with Israel. One is the heavenly company, the other the earthly.
The second result is not about rock and soil either. It is about a world put right.
Secondly, the foundations of the earth will be well and truly laid. Again, this is not the material creation. It is the laying of moral foundations in righteousness. At present "all the foundations of the earth are shaken" (Ps. 82:5). Through the centuries men have tried in vain to establish a righteous order of things, and the best of them have failed completely. They could no more do it than they could reach up to plant the heavens.
The third result concerns a people God does not own at present.
There is a third thing that is to happen: Zion is to be formally acknowledged as God's special people. The prophet Hosea lived about the time of Isaiah. Through him God said, "you are not my people, and I am not your God" (1:9). So up to this present moment they are disowned, though not set aside for ever. The day will come when they will be owned and blessed.
- Cry. The verse answers people begging God's arm to wake and act, and His reply is that He comforts them Himself.
- Cover. Shelter comes before any work: the shadow of His hand. That same hand brought a people out of slavery and still guards the weakest sheep.
- Plant. To plant the heavens is not to make them but to fill them. It means setting people in a place of blessing, and God is doing it now as He calls men out of the nations.
- Found. To lay the earth's foundations is moral, not material. It is righteousness men have failed to build for centuries, and God will fill that earth with Israel as He fills the heavens with the church.
- Own. The last result is a word, not a work: God says to Zion what He once refused to say. Disowned now, they are not set aside for ever.