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September 20, 2026 |
| Isaiah 49 | ||
Isaiah 49 is mainly about the Messiah who will come in 700 years, but God will also look forward in time to say to the Jews that he has not abandoned Israel. A time will come when they will be honored.
The structure of these verses is tricky, and there are some different interpretations of them.
We need to understand that these verses are God's words, given through Isaiah. It sometimes sounds like different people are speaking to each other, but it is all the word of God: "This is what Yahweh says." When the voices speak, the words they use reveal information about themselves or about the other speakers. This kind of storytelling is common in Isaiah's prophecies and in the writings of other prophets.
Listen to Me, O coastlands,
And pay attention, you peoples from afar.
Yahweh called Me from the womb;
From the body of My mother He made My name to be remembered.
2 He has set My mouth like a sharp sword;
In the shadow of His hand He has concealed Me;
And He has also set Me as a select arrow;
He has hidden Me in His quiver.
3 He said to Me, “You are My Servant, Israel,
In Whom I will show forth My beautiful glory.” (Isaiah 49:1-3)
This passage begins with someone speaking about himself. From what he says, this must be Jesus speaking. Then it says, "He said to Me, 'You are … Israel'". It sounds like the speaker must now be Israel. We are going to look into the verses to try to understand what is happening.
But first we note the reference to people from far away, as far away as can be imagined. Israel is bordered on the west by its "coastlands" with the Mediterranean Sea. In Isaiah's time the Mediterranean was pretty well explored, but it represented places that were hard to reach, and it was considered the doorway to far-away places. Therefore referencing them in the text is referencing all of the world and saying that this message is for them.
The speaker says that God called him from the womb, before he was even born. The angel indicated this to Mary before she was pregnant. Then the verse speaks of an angel who said he would be called Immanuel - God with us - a name to be remembered, as I just have. Later an angel gave his name as Yeshua - Yahweh's salvation. All of this happened while he was still in the body of his mother. So far this is strong support for the speaker being Jesus.
Verse 2 can be understood as referring both to Israel and the Messiah. Abraham was foretold the birth of the nation of Israel; Mary was foretold the birth of the Messiah. A "mouth like a sharpened sword" is a mouth that says powerful things to people who do not want to hear. Both Israel and Jesus did that. It was Israel's purpose to be a light for the other nations by words and actions. Thus Israel, when it was fulfilling its purpose, was to be an example and message that was not always welcome. In the same way, the Messiah's words were a sword to those who rejected him, and he was a light to Israel and to the world.
What you see above is the Jewish interpretation of these verses and the Christian interpretation.
The verses about "hid me", "polished arrow", and "quiver" are telling us that there is a special purpose and the instrument for that purpose has been set aside and protected until it is needed. The arrow and the quiver explain it well, but the explanation is lost in our generation, which rarely uses arrows and, when it does, uses perfectly manufactured arrows.
In those days the archer made his own arrows from the materials available. So some arrows would be better than others, straighter, sharper, more even flights, etc. From the best of the arrows, the archer would select a few to receive special treatment, polishing, fine-tuning, etc. These he would keep separate from the others.
When the day of battle arrived, as the enemy advanced but while they were still at a distance, any arrow would do. Because the enemy advanced in groups, a lesser arrow had as good a chance of hitting someone as a special arrow. But as the enemy got close enough that individuals could be clearly seen, and target values assessed, like the leaders and best warriors, the archer got out his best arrows.
At first glance, verse 3 makes it look like the verses before it can only be understood as being about Israel. But Hebrew names have meanings. The name "Israel" can be understood in various ways, but in this context it means "champion of God". In that sense we see that these verses can be applied to both literal Israel and the Messiah.
We also recognize that the long-term plan for Israel and the Messiah is to display the splendor of God. Jesus said as much when he said he came to glorify the Father.
So all of these verses can be understood either way. I'm certain that God did this intentionally so that Israel, who would be spiritually blind at the time they needed to understand this, would not understand. God's people would understand.
But I said, “I have toiled in vain;
I have spent My might for nothing and vanity;
Yet surely the justice due to Me is with Yahweh,
And My reward with My God.” (Isaiah 49:4)
Jesus, as he is being nailed to the cross, considers what he has achieved. Elsewhere in Isaiah we see the same sentiment: "Who has believed our report?" All the traveling he did, all the teaching and miracles seem to have been for nothing. 10 days ago the people were welcoming him as a king, but now the people have rejected him. He is being crucified for crimes he did not commit. His disciples had scattered to avoid capture. Peter had even denied him. It didn't have the appearance of success.
Then he says, "Yet." The injustices done to him will be rewarded. More importantly Jesus' reward will come in time.
So now says Yahweh, who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant,
To return Jacob back to Him, so that Israel might be gathered to Him
(For I am glorified in the sight of Yahweh,
And My God is My strength), (Isaiah 49:5)
The mention of Jacob and Israel is interesting. They are two names for the same person, but the names have a story to tell. Jacob was his given name; Israel was the name God gave him. The Hebrew name Jacob means "'he grasps the heel', a Hebrew idiom for 'he takes advantage of' or 'he deceives'"2. The name Israel means "wrestles with God," which is sometimes wrestling along with God, but sometimes wrestling against God.
So, Israel and Jacob are names for the same person and the same nation, but they are used here to describe two different qualities, one a deceiver and the other a champion of God. The idea presented in the verse is that the deceiver would return to Jesus and be restored as the champion, who would be gathered to God. That gathering is still in the future.
Earlier we saw that a person could interpret the verses as being about Israel or about Jesus. With this verse, it becomes difficult to continue with that view. More and more it looks like one person was born of a woman with a special purpose given by God. How could Israel have the mission of bringing Israel back to God?
He says, “It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant
To raise up the tribes of Jacob and to cause the preserved ones of Israel to return;
I will also give You as a light of the nations
So that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” (Isaiah 49:6)
None of the translations do a great job of rendering this verse into English. It often sounds like God gave the Messiah 2 tasks and added 2 more. What it really says is God gave the Messiah 1 task and added 1 more. It would be clearer as:
To raise up the tribes of Jacob, to restore the preserved ones of Israel
and I will also give You as a light of the Gentiles,
So that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.
As is seen in many other places in the Old Testament, God says one thing of Jacob and an additional thing about Israel, but they are just different ways of describing one thing about one people.
God says it would be too easy for the Messiah to do the small job of restoring the tribes of Jacob. So he also gives the Messiah the task of bringing salvation to the entire earth.
Therefore there are 2 tasks given to the Messiah to accomplish:
This verse also contains something very interesting: the word "salvation." In the Hebrew of this text, the phrase "My salvation" is "Yeshuati", which means "My Yeshua." Yeshua, which means "salvation," is the name the angel gave Mary and Joseph to give to the baby we know of as Jesus. It was not an unknown name for a person to have. So if the Jews of Jesus' time had been reading the scriptures carefully, they would have had another hint to lead them to the Messiah.
Verse 6 is quoted in Luke 2:30–32 by Simeon when he sees the baby Jesus, calling him a "light for revelation to the Gentiles and glory to your people Israel." There were Jews who were truly the people of God and others who were really searching. We tend to forget that when we hear so much about the Priests, Pharisees, and Sadducees. There were many who were already doing what Jesus said, "Do what they say but not what they do."
Paul also quotes this verse in Acts 13:47, where Paul and Barnabas explain that their ministry will focus on the Gentiles, quoting, "I have set you as a light to the Gentiles to be life unto the ends of the Earth."
Thus says Yahweh, the Redeemer of Israel and its Holy One,
To the despised One,
To the One abhorred by the nation,
To the Servant of rulers,
“Kings will see and arise,
Princes will also bow down,
Because of Yahweh who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel who has chosen You.” (Isaiah 49:7)
These verses are packed with more hints for Israel. In Israel the role of the redeemer as a person was special. When his kinsmen got in trouble, he would pay their debts to redeem their property or themselves. So if Yahweh is the redeemer, and Israel the redeemed, what is the price? Who is the one who pays it? Israel should not have missed this.
In this verse Yahweh is "speaking" to the Messiah, and he addresses him as "the one who was despised and abhorred by the nation." What nation? Israel, obviously. From this the Jews of Jesus' time should have been aware that the Messiah was going to be treated harshly by them. Yahweh also refers to the Messiah as "servant of rulers." From this the Jews should have been aware that the Messiah was not going to come as a conquering king, as they were expecting.
In their defense, there are other passages that talk about the Messiah coming as a conquering king. Even this verse mixes in a little of that later on. Reconciling these two views of the Messiah would have been difficult for the Jews. But in Jesus' time they wanted the conquering king and were not prepared for the suffering servant they got.
In the verse where it says "Kings will see you and arise [stand up]", this does not mean they will stand up against the Messiah. The "standing" here is a sign of respect, as when someone important enters the room. When lesser people came to see a king, they bowed before him. That's what we see in the verse, with the princes bowing down.
Where we saw this verse addressed to the despised and abhorred servant Messiah, he is now shown to be of equal rank to a king. Those Jews who understood this verse to be about the Messiah expected that he would have a humble start, but would become king during his life.
The last part of the verse seems intended for the ears of Israel. It points out that despite their unfaithfulness to him, God is faithful and true. His promised Messiah is coming.
Thus says Yahweh,
“In an acceptable time I have answered You,
And in a day of salvation I have helped You;
And I will guard You and give You for a covenant of the people,
To establish the land, to make them inherit the desolate inheritance;
9Saying to those who are bound, ‘Go forth,’
To those who are in darkness, ‘Show yourselves.’
Along the roads they will feed,
And their pasture will be on all bare heights.
10They will not hunger or thirst,
Nor will the scorching heat or sun strike them down;
For He who has compassion on them will guide them
And will lead them to springs of water.
11I will set all My mountains as a road,
And My highways will be raised up.
12Behold, these will come from afar;
And behold, these will come from the north and from the west,
And these from the land of Sinim.”
13Shout for joy, O heavens! And rejoice, O earth!
Break forth into joyful shouting, O mountains!
For Yahweh has comforted His people
And will have compassion on His afflicted. (Isaiah 49:8-13)
The translators have chosen not to include verse 13 in the things said by Yahweh, beginning in verse 8. It's important to understand that quotation marks do not exist in the original text. They are entirely an addition by the translators. In this case I think they have it wrong. We have:
Thus says Yahweh, "…"
The verse after the passage above begins with:
But Zion said, "…"
Because of that "but," it only makes sense that everything before it would be part of "Thus says Yahweh." Also, who else would be saying, "Shout for joy, …."
Again, we need to remember that this is only a literary device used for the exposition of the message. There is no real conversation going on. We'll come back to this later.
That aside, Yahweh has begun speaking to a "you," without identifying the "you." Because of the "give you for a covenant," and our understanding that Jesus' life and blood did create a new covenant, we know it was Jesus. The Jews should have been able to see that because the verses say there will be a new covenant, and they knew that required a sacrifice, but the verse says, "I will give You for a covenant," which means:
Because God had never said anything about sacrificing people, the Jews would probably have interpreted this verse in some odd way. They would have envisaged a man on the altar at the temple. They didn't understand that the sacrifices were metaphorical for a spiritual sacrifice, so the physical instance could be different.
The verse says, "in a day of salvation." God intends two meanings for that. The first is obvious; God had chosen a time of salvation for Israel. The second is based on the word "salvation." In the Hebrew of this phrase, the word is "Yeshua," which is the name of Jesus. The word "salvation" could be only a word, but it was also a commonly used name for people. So this phrase can also be understood as "in a day of Jesus" or "in a time of Jesus."
The end of verse 1 begins with "To establish the land." The translators can't even agree on how to translate this into something that makes any sense, so I won't try to interpret it. The next two phrases, from verse 2, are things Jesus did, and they sound very much like Isaiah's own words in a different chapter.
The Spirit of Lord Yahweh is upon me because Yahweh has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim release to captives and freedom to prisoners, 2 to proclaim the favorable year of Yahweh and the day of vengeance of our God
Our phrase, "Saying to those who are bound, ‘Go forth,’" is saying Jesus would free those who were captives or prisoners. The phrase, "To those who are in darkness, ‘Show yourselves,’" is essentially the same. They all speak about freedom from sin.
Notice also how "favorable year" aligns with our "day of salvation."
Just as Chapter 61 jumped to "day of vengeance," our verses now jump to that future time, which comes conveniently in the middle of a verse. Except that the text begins to describe things that did not happen in Jesus' First Coming, we wouldn't know that this 3000-year jump had happened.
Beginning with "Along the roads they will feed." Isaiah is describing, metaphorically, the idyllic eternal life that is promised to his people.
In 2 Corinthians 6:2, Paul refers to Isaiah 49:8 in making his point that they were living in prophesied times, "Behold, now is the acceptable time, and now is the day of salvation."
But Zion said, “Yahweh has forsaken me,
And the Lord has forgotten me.”
15“Can a woman forget her infant
And have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget, but I will not forget you.
16Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands;
Your walls are continually before Me.
17Your builders hurry;
Your destroyers and devastators
Will depart from you.
18Lift up your eyes and look around;
All of them gather together; they come to you.
As I live,” declares Yahweh,
“You will surely put on all of them as jewels and bind them on as a bride.
19For your devastated and desolate places and your destroyed land—
Surely now you will be too cramped for the inhabitants,
And those who swallowed you will be far away.
20The children of whom you were bereaved will yet say in your ears,
‘The place is too cramped for me;
Make room for me that I may live here.’
21Then you will say in your heart,
‘Who has borne these for me?
Indeed, I have been bereaved of my children
And am barren, an exile and a wanderer.
And who has reared these?
Behold, I remained alone;
From where did these come?’” (Isaiah 49:14-21)
This section continues the "conversation" from the previous section. In it, we see a curious transition. Yahweh was speaking to "you," the Messiah, and we would normally expect to hear a response from him. But now we hear a response from Israel, Zion, in verse 14, and then an immediate response in verse 15 from a speaker who must be Yahweh.
The Zion voice says, "Yahweh has forsaken me," because Yahweh has been talking about those who trusted in the Messiah, and their destiny. They cry out, "We have been dumped (because we rejected the Messiah) and there is nothing for us."
Yahweh responds by saying that isn't true; a mother cannot forget her child. Then this passage jumps into that same future where the previous passage jumped. In that, Yahweh says some interesting things.
He says that your destroyers and devastators will depart … and will gather together … to you, [and] you will put them on as jewels. This metaphor indicates that the Jews will be glorified by those people who once tried to destroy them. This speaks of the Millennial period after the Second Coming, when Ezekiel's temple has been set up and those who had been unbelievers at the Second Coming will stream to that temple to learn about God.
Yahweh says that people will overflow Israel at that time so much so that the Jews will say, "The place is too cramped" and "Where did they come from? It wasn't us." The children they speak of are believers who came out of Israel, which would be Christians, and also the unbelievers at the time of the Second Coming. The answer to their question is that Yahweh caused it.
The author of Hebrews quotes from Isaiah 49:16 in Hebrews 13:5: The author does this to assure believers of God’s enduring faithfulness, saying, "I have engraved you on the palms of my hands." We need to be careful here. Isaiah 49:6 is a promise specifically to Israel. It should not be misdirected into a promise to Christians, and Paul does not do that. He uses it as an example of how God has been faithful to his promises and will be.
Thus says Lord Yahweh,
“Behold, I will lift up My hand to the nations
And make high My standard to the peoples;
And they will bring your sons in their bosom,
And your daughters will be lifted up on their shoulders.
23Kings will be your guardians,
And their princesses your nurses.
They will bow down to you with their faces to the earth
And lick the dust of your feet;
And you will know that I am Yahweh;
Those who hope in Me will not be put to shame. (Isaiah 49:22-23)
Isaiah says that those people who were against God's people will now be the servants of God's people, who will be humbled and humble. But not those who hoped in Yahweh. They will not be shamed by seeing their hope proven false.
“Can the prey be taken from the mighty man,
Or the captives of the righteous be granted escape?” (Isaiah 49:24)
Surely, thus says Yahweh,
“Even the captives of the mighty man will be taken away,
And the prey of the tyrant will be granted escape;
For I will contend with the one who contends with you,
And I will save your sons.
26I will feed those who mistreat you with their own flesh,
And they will become drunk with their own blood as with sweet wine;
And all flesh will know that I, Yahweh, am your Savior
And your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.” (Isaiah 49:25-26)
Through Isaiah, God asks an interesting question, "Can the prey be taken from the mighty man?" The answer will be "yes," but is this only a statement about the power of God? Could the prophecy of that time be looking back at some specific group of captives to be the example of these "captives?" If so, it would be a reference to the escapees from Jerusalem. The leader of the forces who were keeping them captive knew that they would leave and go to Jerusalem, and thus lined the route with forces to oppose them, all of whom were slaughtered.
This takes us to verse 26 about the destruction of their captors.
This is what Isaiah has said:
The Messiah will be born with a mission from Yahweh, but when his mission is done, he will wonder if anything was achieved. Yet, his efforts will be productive.
His mission was to reveal the glory of God, bring Israel back to him, and to be a light to the Gentiles.
He will be despised and abhorred by all, but in the end kings will bow down before him.
He will free the captives (of sin).
He will give eternal life to his people, where they will have all they need and suffer from nothing.
The Jews will cry out (because they rejected him) and say that God has forsaken them and they have nothing. God will respond that he could never forget them and that a time will come when they will be the kings over the people who have mistreated them.
2 NIV 2010/2011 quoted from http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=genesis%2027&version=NIV
3 http://www.ao.net/~fmoeller/isa49.htm
4 Matthew 2:23