CHAPTER 41

(712 B.C.)

THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD OVER THE NATIONS

¹Keep silence before Me, O islands; and let the people renew their strength: let them come near; then let them speak: let us come near together to judgment. (Through Isaiah, God is the Speaker. The idea of this Passage is that before God man has no argument; hence, Keep silence before Me.)

²Who raised up the righteous man from the east, called him to his foot, gave the nations before him, and made him rule over kings? He gave them as the dust to his sword, and as driven stubble to his bow. (It seems from Verse 8 that this righteous man is Abraham, My friend. He was called from the east in Righteousness to Jehovahs foot; for God said to him, Walk before Me and be thou perfect [Gen. 17:1]. He made him ruler over kings; for they became as dust to his sword and as stubble to his bow.)

³He pursued them, and passed safely; even by the way that he had not gone with his feet. (He pursued them refers to Abraham rescuing Lot when he was taken captive by the four kings, as outlined in Gen. 14:1-3. His passing safely by the way that he had not gone with his feet refers to him refusing to take anything from the king of Sodom [Gen. 14:21-24]. He won the battle with the four kings with his feet. He won the battle with the king of Sodom with his spirit. All by the Power of the Holy Spirit, the latter victory was greater even that the former!)

⁴Who has wrought and done it, calling the generations from the beginning? I the LORD, the first, and with the last; I am He. (The generations chosen from the beginning were the children of Abraham; for they were all in their fathers loins when God chose him [Heb. 7:10].

I, Jehovah, the first, and with the Last I Am. This glorious title occurs three times in Isaiah and three times in the Book of Revelation.)

⁵The isles saw it, and feared; the ends of the Earth were afraid, drew near, and came. (This refers to Israel, as is evident in Verse 8, and the seven nations of idolaters in Canaan, and their appeal to their idols for salvation from the victorious soldiers of Joshua. Rahab declared that the hearts of the inhabitants of the land were melting with terror [Josh. 2:9-11]. Thus, again, the folly of idolatry is evidenced.)

⁶They helped every one his neighbour; and every one said to his brother, Be of good courage. (The courage of the confederate nations which tried to stop Joshua was of no consequence with the Lord.)

⁷So the carpenter encouraged the goldsmith, and he who smooths with the hammer him who smote the anvil, saying, It is ready for the sodering: and he fastened it with nails, that i t should not be moved. (As they would make their idol, they would then need to solder and nail it so that the wretched object might be kept erect and not show its weakness by falling over. Such is the spiritual dumbness of man!)

ISRAEL IS GODS SOVEREIGN CHOICE

⁸But you, Israel, are My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham My friend. (In Verses 8 through 20, the existence and love of an irresistible Power of the God of Israel are set out. The name Israel means Prince with God, while Jacob means schemer. Gods ever purpose was to change Jacob, the schemer into Israel, the Prince with God, which He did!)

⁹You whom I have taken from the ends of the Earth, and called you from the chief men thereof, and said unto you, You are My servant; I have chosen you, and not cast you away. (Concerning the chief men thereof, the idea is that God had the ability to choose anyone. He had His pick of the chief men. However, it was Abraham whom He chose, i.e., Jacob.)

GOD WILL GIVE ISRAEL VICTORY; HE WILL BLESS HIS PEOPLE

¹⁰Fear you not; for I am with you: be not dismayed; for I am your God: I will strengthen you; yes, I will help you; yea, I will uphold you with the right hand of My Righteousness. (The progression in this Verse is most precious: I am with you; but He comes yet nearer: I will strengthen you; and still closer: I will help you; and finally, He throws His arms around His Child and says, I will uphold you.)

¹¹Behold, all they who were incensed against you shall be ashamed and confounded: they shall be as nothing; and they who strive with you shall perish.

¹²You shall seek them, and shall not find them, even them who contended with you: they who war against you shall be as nothing, and as a thing of nought. (The order, as given here, is one of climax. Similarly, with each augmentation of the hostility, there is an augmentation of the sentence of punishment. In essence, the Holy Spirit through Isaiah is saying that all who trust the Lord will be vindicated.)

¹³For I the LORD your God will hold your right hand, saying unto you, Fear not; I will help you. (God Himself will be their [our] strength, courage, power, and their glory, and will Personally interfere on their behalf, taking them, as it were, by their right hand. As an adult leads a little child, thereby giving it protection, the Lord promises to do the same for Israel, and for us!)

¹⁴Fear not, you worm Jacob, and you men of Israel; I will help you, says the LORD, and your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. (It is the worm Jacob that is to become a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth, and who is to break in pieces the great nations and the lesser nations, here compared to mountains and hills.

The Passage, worm Jacob, is given here so that Israel will recognize that such is done, not because they are good, but because God is good.)

¹⁵Behold, I will make you a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth: you shall thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shall make the hills as chaff. (Israel is to be more than just sustained here. Strength is to be given her to take the aggressive, and to subdue her enemies under her. This will occur when Jesus comes back. Then every Promise that God made to the Patriarchs and Prophets will be brought to pass.)

¹⁶You shall fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and you shall rejoice in the LORD, and shall glory in the Holy One of Israel. (Israel in the past has little rejoiced or gloried in the LORD. However, her strength has always been derived from this Source, and this Source Alone!)

¹⁷When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue fails for thirst, I the LORD will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. (The poor and needy represent Israel. The water represents the Water of Life. Israel doesnt have this Water of Life, so her thirst continues; however, in the Battle of Armageddon, the Lord will hear their cries, and that thirst will be forever slaked.)

¹⁸I will open rivers in the high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. (Often the Holy Spirit likens the spiritual rejuvenation to the wilderness being made fertile, and that by ample irrigation. Life is a wilderness, and can enjoy fertility only in Christ. How so much, and so often, does man attempt to make the wilderness fertile, but fail he does, as fail he must! Only Christ can do such!)

¹⁹I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine, the box tree together (the trees named are the choicest in Israel; the idea is that we have a deep relationship with the One Who does the planting; in fact, Isaiah will later say that we are the planting of the Lord [61:3]):

²⁰That they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of the LORD has done this, and the Holy One of Israel has created it. (In that future day of blessing, Israel, now barren and stony, will become beauteous and fertile as the Garden of the Lord; and the nations of the Earth will recognize that these wonders are the Work of God and not idols.)

THE LORD IS THE ONE WHO DECLARES THE FUTURE

²¹Produce your cause, says the LORD; bring forth your strong reasons, says the King of Jacob. (In view of all of this that the Lord will do, Isaiah once again compares Jehovah with idols. He says, Produce your cause, etc., i.e., state your case in favor of idolatry; bring forth your weighty arguments, etc.)

²²Let them bring them forth, and sh ow us what shall happen: let them show the former things, what they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or declare us things for to come. (The words, Let them bring them forth, is basically the same as Produce your cause. God claims that the power of predicting the future is His Own inalienable prerogative. He defies the idol-gods and their votaries to give any clear prediction of future events.

The Bible alone proclaims future events, which means all the other so-called holy books are mere works of mens hands idols.)

²³Show the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods: yes, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and behold it together. (In effect, the Lord is saying, concerning these idols, If you cannot prophesy, what can you do? In actuality, you cannot do good or evil. In effect, He is saying, You have no power to do anything.)

²⁴Behold, you are of nothing, and your work of nought: an abomination is he who chooses you. (This Scripture declares an idol to be an abomination. Hence, an idolater becomes an abomination; not only abominable, but worse, an abomination; for a man becomes morally like that which he worships, and idolatry and obscenity are one. As the false god is abomination, so the True God, the Messiah, is Righteousness; not only Righteous, but Righteousness itself.)

²⁵I have raised up one from the north, and he shall come: from the rising of the sun shall he call upon My Name: and he shall come upon princes as upon morter, and as the potter treads clay. (Cyrus was the one raised up by God to fulfill His Word concerning the punishment of Babylon and the freeing of Israel [Jer., Chpt. 25; Dan. 1:21; 6:28; Ezra, Chpt. 1]. This Prophecy was fulfilled about 140 years later. Abraham was the man from the east, Cyrus, the man from the north; both are types of the Son of Man, Who, in His Second Advent, will destroy all idols and all idolaters.)

²⁶Who has declared from the beginning, that we may know? and before time, that we may say, He is righteous? Yes, there is none who shows, yes, there is none who declares, yes, there is none who hears your words. (Said in contrast to this prediction as to Cyrus, the challenge is repeated to the dumb idols to produce such a prediction on their part, thus demonstrating their trustworthiness. But the Verse closes with the statement that not one of the countless idols that men worship could declare anything, or reveal anything, or could even utter one word. They were all dumb!)

²⁷The first shall say to Zion, Behold, behold them: and I will give to Jerusalem one who brings good tidings. (The Messiah speaks here and calls to Zion to behold the fulfillment of His Prediction. Idols bring nothing, while the Lord always brings Good Tidings.)

²⁸For I beheld, and there was no man; even among them, and there was no counselor, that, when I asked of them, could answer a word. (Not only are the idols themselves dumb, but their worshippers, when challenged to defend them, are dumb also; and the inability of the idols to act, as to speak, is again pointed to in this Verse.

Let it ever be understood that outside of the Bible there is no counselor.)

²⁹Behold, they are all vanity; their works are nothing: their molten images are wind and confusion. (Wind and confusion adequately describe anything and everything that is not of the Lord. This final outburst of scorn is directed primarily against the idol-worshippers and, only through them, against the idols.)