Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable, and I have loved thee; and I will give men for thee, and peoples for thy life.
Isaiah 43 speaks to a nation that had failed God, and yet the words are all warmth: precious, honored, loved. The verse forces one question: what makes a people worth other peoples?
Love Spoken to the Unfaithful
The verse does not arrive after Israel has improved. William Kelly weighs what the people had been against what God now says:
Israel had been unfaithful to His name. That unfaithfulness brought the fury of Jehovah on them, though they neither understood nor felt it, since idolatry had blinded them. In this chapter He declares His own faithfulness. He is the One who had called Israel by their name and made them His own.
The Exchange: Nations Given for a People
The verse states a price. God hands others over so that this people may live. Hamilton Smith looks back into history and forward to what is still to come:
In the past, God gave Egypt, Ethiopia and Seba over to judgment, to ransom His people from their power. So in the future He will give up to judgment the nations that have persecuted Israel. He does this because in God's sight His people are "precious," and "honourable," and "loved" by God. So despite all their failure, God is with them. He will gather them back to their land from the ends of the earth.
(Older translations read "honourable" where the ESV has "honored.")
Where the Preciousness Comes From
So what made this people precious? A. J. Pollock answers from God's choice of Israel:
The answer is that God made choice of them in His sovereign wisdom. Deuteronomy 7-8 says the Lord did not choose them because they were more in number than any other. In fact they were the fewest. No, the only reason that God could give for His choice was that He loved them. Nothing in them drew out His love in contrast with others. The reason lay in His own nature. Here lies the solid foundation of the blessing into which the Lord brings His people.
A Promise Larger Than Any Past Return
The chapter goes on to promise a gathering from every direction. Kelly measures that against history:
Isaiah 43 dwells on Israel's relation to Jehovah. It looks not at their sins and their punishments, but at His unfailing faithfulness in sovereign grace. Clearly this still awaits fulfilment, since it goes far beyond anything given in the past... Jehovah will certainly stand by Israel, and more openly in the future than in the brightest memory of the past. He will bring their seed from the east and the west, from the north and the south (verses 5, 6). This far exceeds the return from Babylon. And not Gentiles, but Israelites only are in view here.
The "You" of the Promise
Many readers transfer these promises to the church. T. B. Baines argues that doing so makes God's plain words unreliable:
In these passages God, speaking under the national name Jehovah, has said three times over that He has redeemed Israel as a nation. Yet the accepted interpretation is that He has deceived Israel with false hopes. It says that when He spoke of Israel, He really meant something entirely different! Is it credible that Christians should dare to charge such deception on the One "who cannot lie"? If God could so cruelly deceive Israel, what reason have we to believe He is not equally deceiving us?
Why God Values Them: His Own Glory
J. N. Darby traces the chapter to its goal, and to the way God deals with the guilt of the people He loves:
But now He delivers and saves them (Isaiah 43). He created them for His glory... Jehovah had formed this people for Himself. Yet the people had grown weary of their God, and had, as it were, made Him serve with their sins. But now He pardons it all for His own glory. What a glorious and striking testimony to Him! In grace to the sinner, when the sin becomes unbearable, He puts away the sin instead of the sinner. This is what God has done through Christ.
Summary
- Ground. God speaks this love to people who had been unfaithful and blinded by idolatry. He answers their failure by declaring His own faithfulness.
- Reason. Nothing in them drew out this love. The reason lay in God's own nature. That is why the blessing built on it stands firm.
- Price. Because they are precious, honored and loved, God hands whole nations over in exchange. Their oppressors pay the price of the value He sets on His people.
- Reach. The gathering promised here outruns every past return. God brings His people home from the ends of the earth. Baines adds that "Israel" must mean Israel, or God's word to them was a deception.
- Result. The end of it all is His glory. When sin becomes unbearable, He puts away the sin instead of the sinner — and He has done that through Christ.