Isaiah 49:1

(The beginning of Section B of Division VI (Isaiah 49-57))

There is a dramatic switch in this chapter to the development of the most wonderful prophecies in the Old Testament concerning the appearance in our world of the Dayspring from on High, the holy Messiah, the True Israel of God, namely, The Lord Jesus Christ, who in spite of every hindrance, even the rejection of his own nation, would bring God's salvation to the whole world, Jews and Gentiles alike. Cyrus will be mentioned no more; the Jewish exiles' return from Babylon will be no longer the focus, which is dramatically shifted to Jesus Christ the Son of God, his mission, his characteristics, his assured success, his rejection by the Jewish nation, etc. "Whereas Section I dealt principally with the Doctrine of God, Section II treats especially the Doctrine of Salvation. Salvation comes from God only, and through the ministry of the Servant of Jehovah. It includes deliverance from the penalty of sin, and a new life of protection, joy, and peace; and it is worldwide in scope,"[1]

AN ANALYSIS OF ISA. 49:

I. The Messiah himself is introduced as speaking in Isaiah 49:1-6, stating the purpose of his coming, his rejection by the Jewish nation, and the fact of his enlightening the Gentiles. In Isaiah 49:1, he calls the nations of the whole world to hear his voice. He announces his call to be the Messiah, and gives his qualifications for his mission (Isaiah 49:1-3). He identifies himself as "Israel" (Isaiah 49:3). For the meaning of this word see note below on "Israel." He was named even while he was in the womb of his mother (Isaiah 49:1). He was the chosen instrument through whom God chose to be glorified (Isaiah 49:3); his earthly work would appear to fail (Isaiah 49:4); his future success, however, would be glorious (Isaiah 49:5,6). He would gather in the righteous remnant of the old physical nation of the Jews; but he would also become a light to the heathen of all nations, bringing salvation to the ends of the earth.

II. Jehovah directly promises the ultimate success of Messiah's work (Isaiah 49:7-12). Men would indeed despise and reject him (Isaiah 49:7). No matter what the Old Israel did, Jehovah would make Jesus Christ the basis of a New Covenant for all men, the basis of mankind's renewal of their lost fellowship with God (Isaiah 49:8). He would free the prisoners (from their sins) and provide light for the peoples walking in darkness (Isaiah 49:9). He would remove all obstacles from the way of the peoples who would desire to serve him (Isaiah 49:10-12).

III. A song of praise in view of the Saviour's marvelous work (Isaiah 49:13).

IV. Zion is comforted with assurances of the Father's love, and with the promise that God will never forget or forsake her (Isaiah 49:13-21).

V. God will extend salvation, with all of its blessings, to the Gentiles. Kings and Queens would bring their wealth into the kingdom of Heaven (Revelation 21:24); and all of the enemies of God's Messiah and his Cause shall be destroyed.

Isaiah 49:1-6

"Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken ye peoples, from far: Jehovah hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name: and he hath made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand hath he hid me: and he hath made me a polished shaft; in his quiver hath he kept me close: and he said unto me, Thou art my servant; Israel, in whom I will be glorified. But I said, I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for naught and vanity; yet surely the justice due to me is with Jehovah, and my recompense with my God. And now saith Jehovah that formed me from the womb, to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, and that Israel be gathered unto him (for I am honorable in the eyes of Jehovah, and my God is become my strength); yea, it is too light a thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth."

"Made mention of my name ..." (Isaiah 49:1). This was not true of the nation of Israel, that name, having been given through Jacob in the third generation of Abraham's "seed." Gabriel, however, gave the name Jesus to the Messiah before he was born (Luke 1:31).

"My mouth like a sharp sword ..." (Isaiah 49:2). This indicated that the words which would come out of the mouth of Messiah would be the instrument of his power, the words which would judge men and angels on the last day (John 12:48). This is "the word" that hurled the suns in space, that lifted up the Cross, that stilled the sea; and it is the word that shall summons all the dead who ever lived to receive the sentence of their eternal destiny on the occasion of the final judgment.

"In the shadow of his hand hath he hid me ..." (Isaiah 49:2). God did indeed hide Jesus. He hid him from the wrath of Herod by taking him into Egypt and hid him from all of those who would have killed him until, in his own time, he would allow his crucifixion on Calvary.

"And he said unto me, Thou art my servant Israel, in whom I will be glorified ..." (Isaiah 49:3). This is punctuated differently from the text of the American Standard Version in the text above; because the semicolon that divides Israel from the previous part of this sentence is an error. In this passage, God Almighty himself named the future Messiah "ISRAEL." We have already noted that Jesus Christ is indeed the great Anti-type of Israel; and Christ himself accepted this title in John 15:1ff, where it is recorded that he said, "I AM THE TRUE VINE," the old fleshy Israel, the secular nation, of course, being the corrupt vine or degenerate vine as revealed in both Isaiah and Jeremiah (Isaiah 5:1-7; Jeremiah 2:21).

MEANINGS OF THE WORD "ISRAEL"

The proper interpretation of the Word of God must always take into account the Biblical pattern of using the same word for multiple meanings. See my discussion of this Biblical phenomenon in Vol. 1 of my Pentateuchal Series (Genesis), p. 15, where I have pin-pointed no less than five meanings of the word "seed." Similarly, there are no less than eight legitimate meanings of the word Israel in the holy Bible.

(1) This was the name (Israel) given by the angel to Jacob on the occasion when he wrestled with him till daylight (Genesis 32:28).

(2) This was the name that came to be applied to the posterity of Jacob through the twelve patriarchs.

(3) This was the name that Ephraim and the ten tribes who seceded from the House of David usurped and claimed for themselves only (Hosea 8:14).

(4) This was the name that applied to the kingdom of Judah, after the captivity and loss of the Ten Tribes with Ephraim in the fall of Samaria (722 B.C.).

(5) This was the "covenant name" of the righteous remnant as distinguished from the hypocritical, rebellious majority, who made up the principal mass of those deported into captivity in Babylon.

(6) In the times of the personal ministry of Messiah, the name "Israel" was reserved for a tiny handful of the fleshly nation of the Jews who were called "Israelites Indeed" by Jesus Christ (John 1:47), categorically distinguishing between them and the "sons of the devil" who at the same time they plotted the death of Christ were calling themselves "Israelites," and "sons of Abraham." (See John 8:31-50). Nathaniel, Zacchaeus, Anna, Simeon, Zechariah, Elizabeth, Joseph, Mary, the holy apostles, and that little handful of 120 people who attended that meeting in Acts 1:15 made up the total number of Israelites indeed.

(7) The name "Israel" in our own times, and reaching back to the ministry of Jesus Christ, rightfully belongs to the true followers of Jesus Christ, his church. Paul's letter to the Galatian churches refers to them in Galatians 6:16 as "The Israel of God." The apostles are reigning over the "twelve tribes of Israel," a name applied to the church of Jesus Christ (Matthew 19:28); and the 144,000 of Revelation 7 are none other than the kingdom or church of the Messiah.

(8) The name "Israel" in this very Isaiah 49:3 refers exclusively to Jesus Christ the Messiah. This corresponds with the fact that Christ is the "head of the church which is his spiritual body," the whole body (all the church) itself being also "The Israel of God."

The significance of this meaning of Israel in this passage is very great. Without this information, commentators are simply puzzled and checkmated as regards the discovery of what the passage means. An example of this is seen in the words of Kelley:

"The elusiveness of the servant's identity is nowhere more apparent than here (Isaiah 49:3) ... He is unequivocally identified as Israel...One way out of the impasse would be to delete the word Israel, but the ancient versions will not support such a deletion ... There is no easy solution to the problem of the servant's identity."[2]

All such confusion and lack of understanding disappears instantly when it is understood that "Israel" in this passage is a God-given title of Messiah himself. After all that Isaiah had already revealed about the blindness and deafness of the fleshly nation (Israel), and of their judicial hardening, and of their being no longer the noble vine God had planted, but a "degenerate vine," it is a foolish mistake indeed to try to identify that blind, deaf, hardened, hypocrite of the fleshly nation with the "Servant" who would heal that very nation.

The preposterous proposition inherent in such an identification was duly noted also by Kelley:

"If the servant, therefore, is interpreted collectively (that is, of the fleshly nation of Israel), then one is confronted with the strange anomaly of the nation effecting its own spiritual renewal. Even Muilenburg, who believes the reference here (Isaiah 49:3) applies to the nation collectively, admits that Isaiah 49:5,6 constitute the most serious obstacle to the collective view."[3]

Of course, such an identification of the servant as Israel in the collective sense as the whole nation is not merely "a serious obstacle" to that viewpoint, it is overwhelming proof of the error of that viewpoint.

"I have labored in vain ..." (Isaiah 49:4). These words from the Messiah himself indicate that Jesus' work with the nation of Israel would be, in one sense, frustrating, unsuccessful, and in the large measure useless. The discouragement which our Lord surely encountered was first mentioned in Isaiah 42:4, but here it surfaces again. Thus Isaiah follows the pattern he announced in Isaiah 28:10,13, the same being proof that our human author here is not some "2nd Isaiah," but Isaiah himself. Regarding the apparent failure of Jesus' mission to "the physical Israel," only 120 were gathered together as his disciples after the resurrection.

These marvelous prophecies of that "Ideal Servant" reveal that Christ alone offers salvation to men. The ancient idolaters who bowed down to images made by men fed their soul upon ashes and wasted themselves in degrading and worthless activities; but, "Even so, in philosophical circles today, Bible-rejecting agnostics demonstrate a similar blindness to the great truth that the mechanism of the Universe demands a Mechanic to fashion it, and the equally great truth that neither the ancient idolaters nor our modern unbelievers can answer the all-important question: "How can I be saved"?[4]

Isaiah 49:5 speaks of the mission of the Servant to bring Jacob back to the Lord and to restore Israel; but in Isaiah 49:6, it is revealed that God considered such an achievement on the part of Messiah "too light a thing," that is a work not sufficiently great to be the full task of Messiah, and that his complete work would involve also his bringing light to the heathen nations of the Gentiles. "It would have been an insufficient reward for the `Ideal Servant' to have received only the conversion of Jews as a result of his labors; therefore, God gave him for his recompense the gathering in of the Gentles also, and made him the means of salvation even to the uttermost parts of the earth."[5]

Isaiah 49:6 reveals that Messiah's mission to the Jewish nation did not include the restoration of all of the rebellious nation, but "the restoring of the preserved of Israel, thus being a reference to the "righteous remnant" only.

The recognition on the part of the Apostles themselves appeared, not at first, but eventually, that there was "no distinction" between Jews and Gentiles, nor even between Jews and barbarians. The Great Commission was "to all creation," and "to every creature," and "all nations."