Isaiah 51:1-3

God's Call To His True People To Consider Abraham (Isaiah 51:1).

The first call goes out to ‘listen'. They are to hear His voice as He reminds them about Abraham, the man of faith, who is the father of all who have faith. He was blessed because of his faith (Genesis 15:6). Those who would be blessed must be blessed because of their connection with, and likeness to, faithful Abraham. And all has come from the one man to whom God had promised that he would become many.

Isaiah 51:1

“Listen to me you who follow after righteousness,

You who seek Yahweh.

Look to the rock from which you were hewn,

And to the hole of the pit from which you were dug.

Look to Abraham, your father,

And to Sarah, who bore you,

For when he was but one I called him,

And I blessed him and made him many.”

Isaiah now speaks to the believers in Israel, the faithful, those who follow after righteousness and seek Yahweh. To ‘seek' does not mean try to find Him, but to seek to enter into all His fullness. They know Him and they want to enjoy Him more fully. He tells them to look to Abraham, their father, and to Sarah who bore them. They are now all seen as descendants of Abraham by faith, and within the line of promise through Sarah. He is the rock from which they were hewn, and if they look back they can see the hole in the quarry from which they were dug. They were dug out of him. Thus their position and privilege stems from Abraham.

This ‘descent' was of course a descent through faith. The majority of them were not literally descended from Abraham. But they had all become linked in one way or anther with the family tribe of Abraham and the covenant with Yahweh. All who truly believe in Yahweh are thus sons of Abraham.

Coming in the midst of the Servant narratives this confirms our application of Isaiah 41:2; Isaiah 41:25; Isaiah 46:11 to Abraham. He was the one who came from the east and called on Yahweh and was blessed and made mighty. It was from him that they came. They were of his ‘stuff', coming from Abraham who loved Him. Without the background there these words would have been of limited significance. It was because Isaiah has previously outlined his greatness and association with God that these words are so significant.

Both Isaiah 41:8 and this verse gain significantly from the background of Abraham's call and activity. They are the many coming from the one, and associated with him as God's Servant. They had entered the land in him. It was in him that they were called. It was in him that they were to be blessed. It was because Abraham, with Sarah their ‘mother', was the called one who came and triumphed and defeated and trod down the enemy and divided the spoil (like a bird of prey) that he was so important. The land has become his through his descendants. The mention of Sarah is important because it limits the application of the illustration. It was only given to the spiritual ‘descendants' of Abraham/Sarah, the children of promise.

It seems to us inconceivable that Isaiah would have introduced Abraham at these two vital points if he had not already provided us with a background to look to. He would not just assume that all Israel would recognise the greatness of Abraham without any reminder about it at all. His points are powerful exactly because he has previously portrayed that greatness. Without it Abraham is just introduced with no background.

But the stress on Abraham's ‘oneness' gives special significance to the previous reference to ‘the one', the unique One, absent in Isaiah 50:2. Just as Abraham was called as one and became many, so the Servant is to be called as One and will be made many. God's pattern is repeating itself. From the One will come the many.

Abraham was of course never literally ‘but one'. He came with his wife and his servants, and his herds and flocks. But he was ‘but one' with regard to his position with God. Then all the others were irrelevant. It was one man and his God. It was from that relationship that the many were blessed. And thus is it to be with the Servant. From One Man and His God will come the promised blessing and the manifold seed and the division of the spoil (Isaiah 53:10; Isaiah 53:12), as with Abraham. So let them look back to Abraham to whom they trace their antecedents, and see that all that was promised in Abraham is now to be fulfilled in Yahweh's greater Servant who is coming, the great Seed of Abraham.

Isaiah 51:3

“For Yahweh has comforted Zion.

He has comforted all her waste places,

And has made her wilderness like Eden,

And her desert like the Garden of Yahweh.

Joy and gladness will be found in it,

Thanksgiving and the voice of song.”

The blessing of Abraham is here described in the blessing of his seed, as though it were already accomplished. His being blessed was not just the blessing of having many seed, but of what that seed would enjoy. This is the ‘comfort' to which Isaiah 40:1 referred. When God has completed His work all her wilderness and waste places will become like Eden, a new Paradise. The effects of the curse will have been removed. It will be made like the Garden of Yahweh. It will be filled with singing. And it is offered to ‘Zion', God's wayward people as symbolised by Jerusalem. If only they will they can respond and enjoy His blessing. The devastations of the past will be forgotten. The wilderness will become Paradise, and her people full of gladness and praise and song.

That this is not all intended literally again comes out in the application. It is not really a city which is to be blessed, but a people, and those people of widespread nature. For never again could they all join together in a literal Jerusalem. There would not be room for so many. It would have to be a new Jerusalem of vast proportions, a heavenly Jerusalem as the New Testament declares (Galatians 4:26; Hebrews 12:22; Revelation 3:12), just as God would visit His people with a heavenly Temple (Ezekiel 40-48). It is a picture of the sublime. This is even more exemplified in the next summons.

Note that we find here an echo of Isaiah's previous promises in the first part of his book. Compare Isaiah 12:3; Isaiah 33:20; Isaiah 35:10 (quoted in Isaiah 51:11); see also Isaiah 11:5; Isaiah 49:10.