A LIGHT TO THE GENTILES

“The Evangelical Prophet”

VI. THE SERVANT OF JEHOVAH, Isaiah 49-57

1.The Servant’s Mission, Isa_49:1-26; Isa_50:1-11; Isa_51:1-23; Isa_52:1-12

53. Where and how does the first division of the second part of Isaiah close? Where is this concluding phrase repeated?

Isaiah 48:17-22

THE LORD’S CALL TO ISRAEL

This is what the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel says, “I am the LORD your God, who teaches you to profit (benefit), Who leads you in the way that you should go.

“Oh, that you had paid attention to My commandments! Then your peace and prosperity would have been like a [flowing] river, And your righteousness [the holiness and purity of the nation] like the [abundant] waves of the sea.

“Your offspring would have been like the sand, And your descendants [in number] like the grains of sand; Their name would never be cut off or destroyed from My presence.” [Gen_13:16; Jer_33:22; Luk_19:42]

Get out of Babylon! Flee from the Chaldeans [who reign there]! Declare with a voice of jubilation, proclaim this, Send it out to the end of the earth; Say, “The LORD has redeemed His servant Jacob.”

They did not thirst when He led them through the deserts. He made the waters flow out of the rock for them; He split the rock and the waters flowed.

“There is no peace for the wicked,” says the LORD.

Isaiah 49:1-13

Listen to Me, O islands and coastlands, And pay attention, you peoples from far away. The LORD has called Me from the womb; From the body of My mother He has named Me.

He has made My mouth like a sharp sword, In the shadow of His hand He has kept Me hidden; And He has made Me a sharpened arrow, In His quiver He has hidden Me.

And [the LORD] said to Me, “You are My Servant, Israel, In Whom I will show My glory.” [Gen_32:28; Deu_7:6; Deu_26:18-19; Eph_1:4-6]

Then I said, “I have labored in vain, I have spent My strength for nothing and vanity (pride, uselessness); However My justice is with the LORD, And My reward is with My God.”

And now says the LORD, who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant, To bring Jacob back to Him and that Israel might be gathered to Him, –For I am honored in the eyes of the LORD, And My God is My strength–

He says, “It is too trivial a thing that You should be My Servant To raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will also make You a light to the nations That My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

This is what the LORD, the Redeemer of Israel, Israel’s Holy One says, To the thoroughly despised One, To the One hated by the nation To the Servant of rulers, “Kings will see and arise, Princes shall also bow down, Because of the LORD who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel who has chosen You.”

This is what the LORD says, “In a favorable time I have answered You, And in a day of salvation I have helped You; And I will keep watch over You and give You for a covenant of the people, To restore the land [from its present state of ruin] and to apportion and give as inheritances the deserted hereditary lands, [2Co_6:2]

Saying to those who are bound and captured, ‘Go forth,’ And to those who are in [spiritual] darkness, ‘Show yourselves [come into the light of the Savior].’ They will feed along the roads [on which they travel], And their pastures will be on all the bare heights.

“They will not hunger or thirst, Nor will the scorching heat or sun strike them down; For He who has compassion on them will lead them, And He will guide them to springs of water. [Rev_7:16-17]

“And I will make all My mountains a roadway, And My highways will be raised.

“In fact, these will come from far away; And, lo, these shall come from the north and from the west, And these from the land of Aswan (southern Egypt).”

Shout for joy, O heavens, and rejoice, O earth, And break forth into singing, O mountains! For the LORD has comforted His people And will have compassion on His afflicted.

F.B.Meyer
On  
Isaiah 48:17-22 and Isaiah 49:1-13

53. Where and how does the first division of the second part of Isaiah close? Where is this concluding phrase repeated?

The first division of this second part of Isaiah closes at Isa_48:22, with the phrase there is no peace to the wicked. The second division of part 2 closes with a similar phrase, Isa_57:21. The first division here ends with the proclamation for Israel to leave Babylon. They need never have gone there. If only they have been obedient in every particular theirs would have been the happy lot of Isa_48:18, as contrasted with Isa_48:22. But even under such circumstances, in captivity and as slaves of the Chaldeans the redeeming grace of God would triumph, Isa_48:20; Isa_49:5.

The second great division of Part 2 opens with Isa_49:1. In their first and immediate reference, these verses evidently apply to our Lord. See Act_13:47, etc. In the mission of Jesus, the ideal of the Hebrew race was realized. As the white flower on the stalk He revealed the essential beauty and glory of the root, Isa_49:6. See Hos_11:1; Mat_2:1-2; Mat_2:14-15, etc.

There is a secondary sense, also, in which the Christian worker may appropriate many things in this glowing paragraph. Our mouth must be surrendered to God, that He may use it for His own high purposes. But do not dread the shadow of His hand. It is the quiver case in which He keeps His chosen arrows against the battle!

By Philippus Schutte

New Covenant Israelite! "And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree;  Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee."  Rom 11:17 -18