I am sought out of them that inquired not [for me], I am found of them that sought me not; I have said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name.
Isaiah 65 opens with God answering the appeal that closes the chapter before it. His answer starts not with Israel but with people who never once looked for Him. Who are these strangers? And how could they find God when they were not even looking for Him?
The chapter is not a fresh subject but a response. One writer sets the verse in that place and points to the New Testament for its settled meaning:
This chapter begins Jehovah's answer to the appeal of His people. In it He explains what is now an accomplished fact, and also what still goes on... The last two verses of Romans 10 leave no ground for hesitation as to their bearing. They give an inspired comment on our opening verses. They prove beyond dispute that the first verse points to the call of the Gentiles, which is going on now. The second verse is God's grieved witness to what gave occasion for that call — the rebelliousness of His ancient people Israel... On our own we might never have found this application. But once it is made, the spiritual mind sees that it matches well-known facts exactly.
One writer finds Isaiah's boldness in the wording itself. The prophet does not speak about God; he speaks as God:
Yes, Isaiah does speak with great boldness. He speaks as the very voice of Jehovah, not about Him. He does not say, "He was ready to be sought… He was ready to be found… He said…" but rather, "I was ready to be sought… I was ready to be found… I said…" How can it be, we may ask, that people who never asked after God are now seeking Him? The answer seems obvious. It must happen as the result of God seeking after them. This is exactly what has taken place in this Gospel age.
The people God speaks to here had no name from Him and no history with Him. One writer ties that to why God turned from the nation that had both:
Grace is sovereign and goes out now to those who never so much as looked for it — to the ungodly Gentiles who had until now stood in no recognised relationship with God. But when God turned from Israel, their sins fully justified Him. After all their advantages, the chosen people had caused His name to be blasphemed among the Gentiles. So He was most gracious in calling from among the Gentiles, and most righteous in discarding the Jew.
Isaiah himself belonged to the nation that carried God's name. One writer weighs that against what he announced:
Here we have a Jewish prophet, hemmed in by nature and by religion within a rigid exclusiveness. He reports that God was found by people who never sought Him by sacrifice or ritual. God showed Himself to people who never asked after Him by prayer or any other means.
The same writer names the instinct that makes such news hard to hear:
It took real boldness for Isaiah to say such a thing. The eldest son was jealous of the prodigal, and the Jew is jealous of the Gentile... The natural heart would keep the grace of God to itself; but that grace is boundless, free, common to all.
Read as a picture of Christ, the verse describes a doctor who arrives before anyone thinks to send for Him:
Christ shows more love to His patients than any other physician does. You can see it in that long journey He took from heaven to earth. You can see it in this too: He comes to His patients without being sent for... Then this physician lets Himself bleed to cure His patient... Christ Himself drank that bitter cup which we should have drunk, and by His drinking it we are healed and saved.
- Answer — The verse opens God's reply to His people. The end of Romans 10 fixes its meaning beyond dispute.
- Initiative — Whoever seeks God here was sought by Him first. The seeking is the result, not the cause.
- Sovereign — Grace goes out to people with no recognised relationship to God. Setting aside the nation that had every advantage was just.
- Bold — A prophet of the named nation announced that God is found apart from sacrifice, ritual, or prayer. Grace is not something the heart may keep to itself.
- Uncalled — Christ crossed from heaven to earth. He came to patients who never sent for Him, then bled to cure them.
I have stretched out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, who walk in a way not good, after their own thoughts;
God's reply here is not an argument. It is a gesture — hands held out all day long to a people walking their own way. Two questions follow. What does it mean for God to keep pleading with people who will not have Him? And what happened when that long day ended?
The chapter opens as a reply to Israel's appeal. God speaks first of those who never looked for Him, then of His own people who refused Him.
This chapter begins Jehovah's answer to the appeal of His people. In it He explains what is now an accomplished fact, and also what still goes on... The last two verses of Romans 10 leave no room for doubt about what these verses mean. They give an inspired comment on our opening verses. They prove beyond dispute that the first verse shows the call of the Gentiles, which is going on now. The second is God's grieved witness to what gave occasion for their call — the rebelliousness of His ancient people Israel.
The verse gives three details: what the people followed, where it led them, and how long God kept calling.
The people had been rebellious. They followed "their own thoughts" instead of God's thoughts, which He gave in His holy law. And these thoughts of theirs led their feet into a way that was not good. God had stooped to plead with them "all the day." That "day" had been a long one, stretching over centuries. To these appeals they had not responded.
The picture settles a question people still raise: did God abandon Israel? Outstretched hands are not the posture of someone walking off.
It is not God who has rejected His ancient people. He says: "All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people." It is important to see this side of the truth. God is perfectly ready for Israel — indeed for all men — to be saved. It is man who is the rebel, the breaker of the law, and now the rejecter of the mercy of God.
What Isaiah records as God's complaint became the daily experience of Jesus. He gave everything to His work among them and saw it produce nothing.
He saw just as clearly that His work bore no fruit. His service never let up, His zeal consumed Him, and He gave Himself completely to His mission. His enemies test Him and ask Him for a sign from heaven. His friends and followers are blind and deaf to the true meaning of His ministry. So people resisted the great impulses of His loving heart from both sides, and threw them back on Him... He could take up the language of the prophecy: "All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people."
Another writer ties the verse to the Lord's own words over Jerusalem.
Israel would not be gathered, as the Lord Himself said in Matthew 23:37, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, ... and you were not willing." Again in Isaiah 65:2, "I spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious people."
Verse 1 and verse 2 stand side by side. One nation refused, while nations that had never asked found Him — and that arrangement has an end point.
The only true sense is the one given by the apostle in Romans 10:20-21... Take the apostle's comment as the end of the argument, and the conclusion simply agrees with what the prophecy itself proves many times over. Here we are looking at the Jews set aside — not for their idolatry only, but for their rejection of the Messiah. And we are looking at Gentiles called meanwhile by sovereign grace, before mercy steps in at the end of the age to restore Israel.
The gesture is not confined to one nation or one era. It is how God deals with people who do not want Him.
The love of God also seeks man's reconciliation to Himself... "God making His appeal through us, we implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God." No one could use such words about redemption. His love desired the reconciliation, though we did not. Even about sinful Israel we read that He held out His hands to a disobedient and contrary people. He waited on them with patience, but they refused; and it is to the glory of His own grace that He has brought us to Himself.
- All the day — God pleaded with Israel for centuries, not hours. The length of that day measures His patience.
- Their own thoughts — they did not stumble in ignorance. They chose their own thinking over God's, and that choice picked their road.
- Held out hands — God did not walk away. Man is the one who refuses, and the refusal is his own.
- Christ's own words — Jesus lived this verse out. He served without rest, met only blindness, and Jerusalem would not come to Him.
- Grace overflows — one people refused, and people who never asked for God found Him. Mercy will yet return to restore Israel at the end of the age.