Isaiah 41 - Introduction

THE HISTORY OF SALVATION AND THE SERVANT OF YAHWEH (41-55).

Having brought out the greatness of God these Chapter s will now describe Isaiah's concept of the Servant of Yahweh through whom He seeks to bring about His purposes. They are split into two main sections each of which is opened by words addressed to ‘you coastlands/isles' (Isaiah 41:1; Isaiah 49:1). His message is seen as directed towards the world. The first main section is then split into two parts, Isaiah 41:1 to Isaiah 44:23 and Isaiah 44:24 to Isaiah 48:22.

So we can analyse it has follows:

SECTION I.

1) The Rise of the Servant of Yahweh (Isaiah 40:1 to Isaiah 44:23).

2) The Building of A New Temple and the Destruction of Babylon the Enemy of God In Readiness For the Servant's Activity (Isaiah 44:24 to Isaiah 48:22).

SECTION II.

3) The Future Work of the Servant on Behalf Of Israel and the World (Isaiah 49:1 to Isaiah 55:13).

It begins with the call of Abraham, God's beloved and true servant, and the rise from him of the great Servant of the Lord. The rise of the Servant then continues, and included within his rise is God's erection of a new Temple and His judgment on Babylon, and ends with the future activity of the Servant Whose great sacrifice of Himself will bring bout the redemption of His people (Mark 10:45), with, in chapter 55, a description of the establishing of the greater David yet to come, followed by an appeal for response and a declaration of the certainty that what Yahweh purposes will come about. The whole section could be headed by us ‘from Abraham to the Messiah'. It is a history of salvation.

1). The Rise of The Servant Of Yahweh (Isaiah 41:1 to Isaiah 44:23).

The first section mainly sees the Servant as Israel. This is because they are ‘the seed of Abraham' (Isaiah 41:8), although undoubtedly incorporating the idea of the new Davidic king in Isaiah 42:1, for the Davidic king was central to Israel. Following the arrival of Abraham, God's beloved, in the land (Isaiah 41:2; Isaiah 41:25) (containing within him, in Hebrew thought, the seed of all his descendants), Israel/Jacob are announced as God's Servant because they are his seed (Isaiah 41:8). Though they are weak Yahweh is going to raise them up, and make them strong (Isaiah 41:14 onwards). Thus He calls on all now to behold His Servant who will do His will (Isaiah 42:1). Here the Servant is, in context, Israel as descended from Abraham, but as headed by their glorious, future, victorious king, promised in Chapter s 7-11, Who will establish justice in the earth (Isaiah 42:4; Isaiah 42:6; Isaiah 9:7; Isaiah 11:1).

However, at present all is not well. The Servant is revealed as blind and deaf (Isaiah 42:18). But God will redeem them (Isaiah 43:1) and they will then become His witnesses (Isaiah 43:10), for He is going to do a new thing (Isaiah 43:19). He will be with them continually (Isaiah 43:2), He will draw them together from the four corners of the earth (Isaiah 43:6), and as such they are to be His witnesses (Isaiah 43:10). He will rid them of the ever encroaching rulers of Babylon, the opponent of all that is of God (Isaiah 43:14), and will establish them prosperously in His ways (Isaiah 43:19). Then He is going to pour out on His Servant His Holy Spirit, totally transforming those whom He has chosen (Isaiah 44:1). And because they are His Servant they must remember that He has formed them from the womb that they might be so, and will not forget them (Isaiah 44:21). This part then ends with creation praising God because He has blotted out the sins of His true Servant whom He has redeemed, and rejoicing because He has glorified Himself in Israel (Isaiah 44:22).

So the vision is of a people who are the seed of Abraham (Galatians 3:29), who are drawn together by Him (Acts 2:5) and freed from their blindness (2 Corinthians 4:4; Ephesians 4:18), and who together under their King's activity are to establish righteousness in the world and bring glory to God. It is God's overall plan in history. It will fulfil His purposes as revealed in Exodus 19:5. It will begin with the restoration of His people to Palestine (something much more complicated than just a mere return of exiles from Babylon), will continue with their witness both there and in the Dispersion (the Jews scattered around the world), and find its ultimate fulfilment when the King comes and sends out His messengers to every part of the world (Acts 1:8) where they will proclaim the Kingly Rule of God (Acts 28:31).

2). The Building of A New Temple and the Destruction of Babylon the Enemy of God In Readiness For the Servant's Activity (Isaiah 44:24 to Isaiah 48:22).

However, because Jerusalem and the Temple need to be re-sanctified, a necessity because of Yahweh's anger (assumed in Isaiah 39:6) and the previous defilement of the Temple (clearly indicated in Isaiah 43:28), He will first raise up the house of Cyrus to restore both city and temple, which will be followed (at a time not described) by Israel's everlasting deliverance and God's appeal to the world to look to Him and be saved (Isaiah 45:14; Isaiah 45:17; Isaiah 45:22). Indeed this latter will come about because of the former things, which are revealed as having resulted in the coming of the bird of prey from the east, Abraham, the friend and servant of God, through whose seed all this will be accomplished (Isaiah 46:9).

As a result Babylon will be destroyed, with all its occult and religious practises (Isa 41:47). But tragically Israel will still be unrighteous, obstinate and stubborn (Isaiah 48:1). Yet in spite of that He will not utterly destroy them but will instead refine them through affliction (Isaiah 48:9). They are therefore to turn their backs on dependence on great cities, and on magic and the occult, and on all that Babylon has stood for, and all that it offers and represents, and are to flee from her and her magic and idolatry (Isaiah 48:20) because Yahweh has redeemed them, and they must no longer have dealings with such as Babylon, a doomed city. Chapter 48 then ends the section despondently because of the current state of Israel. In spite of all God's Servant is in no state to act. We could head this whole section as, ‘from call to crisis'.

Meanwhile interspersed with all this are constant references to idols and their futility, which are finally to be dealt with by the destruction of Babylon.

That a new Temple would be required was a huge insight. The old was seen as defiled and no longer acceptable. But what Isaiah was not to know was that the new Temple would also prove to be fallible, so that in the end God would have to raise a further new Temple consisting first of His Son (John 2:21) and then of His people (1 Corinthians 3:16; 1 Corinthians 6:19; 2 Corinthians 6:16) through which His message would go to the world. But he was correct in his instinct that the old must be replaced by something better, and that it was only through such a new Temple that God's cause could go forward.

At the same time Babylon, the bastion of idolatry, had to be destroyed with its malicious influence. It was not until men turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God that there could be hope for the future (1 Thessalonians 1:9).

3). The Future Work of the Servant on Behalf Of Israel and the World (Isaiah 49:1 to Isaiah 55:13).

The next section from Isaiah 49:1 begins with a further reference to the Servant. But the Servant is now no longer seen to be all Israel. Rather He has been formed in order to bring Jacob again to Him, and to gather Israel to Him (Isaiah 49:4). He is to raise up the tribes of Jacob and restore the preserved of Israel (Isaiah 49:6), as well as being a light to the Gentiles and God's deliverance to the end of the earth. He is to be raised up as a covenant of the people, to establish the land (or earth) and enable them to inherit the desolate heritages. And kings will see and arise and princes will worship. Yet He is still addressed in Isaiah 49:3 as ‘Israel'.

Two possible reasons for this exist, not necessarily mutually exclusive. One is that this is speaking to the faithful in Israel, those responsive to God's word through the prophets, whom God would indeed use as His servant in days to come. The other that it is the coming One, the future Davidic king Himself, the one person who could alone of all men be called ‘Israel' for He is their representative and speaks in their name, the one to whom they look, the one who is their very life (Lamentations 4:20). And who else could establish the land? Besides there is no need to exclude either, for both are His Servant, both are the true seed of Abraham. We may thus see the Servant in chapter 49 as faithful Israel acting under and through their righteous king. Their work was then later carried on by the ‘congregation' of Christ (Matthew 16:18) who became the Israel of God (Galatians 6:16) and the new Servant (Acts 13:47) and took His message out to the world (Acts 13:47).

But now we come across an interesting phenomenon. Concentration on an individual. In Isaiah 50:2 we are asked, why was there not a man ('ish)? Why was there none to answer? And immediately comes the reply and description of One taught by Yahweh Who has gone through much personal, individual suffering at the hands of men but will be vindicated by Yahweh (Isaiah 50:4). He is Yahweh's Servant (Isaiah 50:10). This is followed by the injunction to those who follow righteousness and seek Yahweh to look back to Abraham who was called when he was but one, who then became many (Isaiah 51:2). There is a strong implication here that now at least the Servant is again, like Abraham, one man who will become many, otherwise why the emphasis on the oneness of Abraham?

This is then followed by  one  who declares the good news to Zion that ‘Your God reigns' (compare Isaiah 40:9, but while in Isaiah 40:9 it was Zion who spoke, here Zion is spoken to). And finally we have the description of one who is Yahweh's Servant who will be exalted, and lifted up and be very high, who will sprinkle many nations and king's will close their mouths at him (Isaiah 52:13; Isaiah 52:15) who will himself come from suffering (Isaiah 52:14), followed by a picture of that individual as enduring suffering and exaltation ‘for us', and being offered as a guilt offering, so that ‘we' may be delivered (chapter 53). As the ‘us' and the ‘we' are presumably the faithful in Israel, including Isaiah, this Servant cannot be them. The Servant has thus become one individual suffering on behalf of all God's true people. Here finally we are brought to the fact that if salvation was to be offered it could only be through One who would Himself take on Himself the sins of the world (John 1:29). None other could be sufficient. Only through the offering of this One could eternal redemption be made available (Hebrews 9:12).

Immediately following the description of this crucial work of the Servant is the description of Israel once again being accepted as Yahweh's wife (Isaiah 54:4) with a righteousness that comes from Yahweh (Isaiah 54:17), and the call to all to drink what is good so that they might enjoy the sure mercies of David and enter into the everlasting covenant (Isaiah 55:3) and everlasting blessing (Isaiah 55:10).

With this Davidic connection can we finally see in this Servant any other than the coming Davidic king who will establish righteousness and establish His everlasting kingdom (Isaiah 9:6; Isaiah 11:1)? No wonder that when the Ethiopian Eunuch asked of whom Isaiah spoke, Philip preached unto him Jesus Christ (Acts 8:35).

THE RISE TO SUCCESS OF THE SERVANT AND SUBSEQUENT FAILURE (Isaiah 41:1 to Isaiah 48:22).

Having declared the glory and power of God as the One Who is supreme over all things (chapter 40), Isaiah now turns his attention to the way in which He is about to bring about what He has purposed from the very beginning. He has in mind God's promise to Abraham when he called on him to flee from the land of the Chaldeans (Genesis 12:31) and go from there to the land of Canaan (Isaiah 48:20 is thus a repetition of this). ‘Get out from your country (in the east - Genesis 11:31) -- to the land that I will show you, and I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great -- and I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse, and in you shall all the families of the earth be blessed' (Genesis 12:1).

So as God's servant (Genesis 26:24; Psalms 105:6; Psalms 105:42; see also Exodus 32:13; Deuteronomy 9:27) Abraham comes from the east (Isaiah 41:2) and possesses the land (Isaiah 41:2). After which ‘the seed of Abraham my servant' (Psalms 105:6), the children of Jacob ‘His chosen ones' (Psalms 105:6) themselves become His servant and are expected to fulfil the promises made to Abraham (Isaiah 41:8). And Yahweh declares that He will be with them in order that they might fulfil this purpose (Isaiah 41:10). Thus if the so-called gods want to prove what they are let them do it by themselves confirming what He is saying (Isaiah 41:21).

God's servant has been raised up from the north (Isaiah 41:25), as Yahweh has declared from the very beginning, (although no one else has (Isaiah 41:26)), and he will fulfil all His will. But only Jerusalem will learn the good tidings through His messenger (Isaiah 41:27), for the gods are silent and are ‘vanity' and in confusion (Isaiah 41:28).

And it is at this point that Yahweh's true Servant will be revealed (Isaiah 42:1), consisting of Israel under her King, on whom will come His Spirit, Who will take His message to the Gentiles and will establish justice in the earth and rule over the furthest coastlands.

In the first analysis this Servant is Israel (Isaiah 41:8). But a second glance soon reveals that He is also Immanuel, in view of what He will achieve (Isaiah 42:1). For the Spirit will be on Him and He will establish justice in the earth and will rule the nations (Isaiah 42:2; compare Isaiah 11:1; Isaiah 9:6 with Isaiah 7:14), and He will accomplish all God's purpose (Isaiah 42:6). The Servant is thus both coming King and coming people. Here we have reach the climax of the description begun in Isaiah 41:1, and of Yahweh's achievement, and we now go back to see how it will be brought about.

As a result all the nations are to shout out because Yahweh is going forth as a man of war to deliver His people, who will turn back and be ashamed of their dreadful failure (Isaiah 42:10). For the fact is that Yahweh had wanted through His people to exalt His Instruction (Torah - Isaiah 42:21), but Israel had been proved to be a blind servant (Isaiah 42:19) and had been humiliated into captivity by the spoilers and robbers (of Assyria) (42. 22-25). Now therefore Yahweh would begin His restoration of His servant (Isaiah 43:1) who were to be His witnesses (Isaiah 43:10). He will ransom them (deliver them from Assyria) by giving Egypt as their ransom and Cush and Seba will be given for them (Isaiah 43:3). And He will further redeem them by removing the influence of Babylon (Isaiah 43:14). And He will re-establish His people in an abundant land (Isaiah 43:19), although first He will have to deal with them because they have not called on Him. He will do this by profaning the princes of the Sanctuary and making Israel a curse and a reviling (Isaiah 43:22). Then, however, He will pour on them His Spirit and they will call themselves Yahweh's (Isaiah 44:1), for He Who is the first and the last is Israel's Redeemer (Isaiah 44:6). They therefore need not fear for He is the Rock and He will bring it about (Isaiah 44:7). And they need not fear other gods for they are but vanity and are blind (Isaiah 44:9).

So Israel is to remember all these things because Yahweh has chosen them to be His Servant, and has blotted out their transgressions and redeemed them, and waits now for them to turn to Him as His servant (Isaiah 44:21) which will bring great rejoicing to creation (Isaiah 44:23).

The Raising Up Of God's Servant (Isaiah 41:1 to Isaiah 44:23)

Chapter 41 Isaiah Urges Israel To Be Faithful as God's Servant.

The first seven verses of this chapter continue the theme of appeal in chapter 40 but as applied to the nations. They are an appeal to the wider world to consider what God has done through Abraham and his descendants and respond to Him. Great emphasis is laid on Abraham. And in Isaiah's vision they do respond and worldwide love is established.

This is then followed by an assurance to the faithful in Israel, the true Israel, that they are His servant because they are of Abraham, and that He will be with them where they are, enabling them in the fulfilling of their responsibility, and making full provision for them under all circumstances, if only they will respond. This is accompanied by a challenge to the gods of the nations to demonstrate their capabilities, which they cannot do because they are non-existent nothings, and the chapter finishes with one whom God has raised up, preparatory to the introduction to ‘My Servant'.