Isaiah 41

41:1 KEEP silence before me, O islands; and let the peoples renew their strength: let 2 them come near; then let them speak: let us come near together to judgement. Who hath raised up one from the east, whom he calleth in righteousness to his foot? he giveth nations before him, and maketh him rule over kings; he giveth them as the dust to his sword, as 3 the driven stubble to his bow. He pursueth them, and passeth on safely; even by a way 4 that he had not gone with his feet. Who hath wrought and done it, calling the generations 5 from the beginning? I the LORD, the first, and with the last, I am he. The isles saw, and 6 feared; the ends of the earth trembled: they drew near, and came. They helped every one 7 his neighbour; and every one said to his brother, Be of good courage. So the carpenter encouraged the goldsmith, and he that smootheth with the hammer him that smiteth the anvil, saying of the soldering, It is good: and he fastened it with nails, that it should not be moved. 8 But thou, Israel, my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend; 9 thou whom I have taken hold of from the ends of the earth, and called thee from the corners thereof, and said unto thee, Thou art my servant, I have chosen thee and not cast thee away; 10 fear thou not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed, for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. Behold, all they that are incensed against thee shall be ashamed and confounded: 12 they that strive with thee shall be as nothing, and shall perish. Thou shalt seek them, and shalt not find them, even them that contend with thee: they that war against thee shall be as 13 nothing, and as a thing of nought. For I the LORD thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee. Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; 14 I will help thee, saith the LORD, and thy redeemer is the Holy One of Israel. Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth: thou shalt thresh the mountains, 16 and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff. Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and thou shalt rejoice in the 17 LORD, thou shalt glory in the Holy One of Israel. The poor and needy seek water and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst; I the LORD will answer them, I the God of Israel 18 will not forsake them. I will open rivers on the bare heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. 19 I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree; I 20 will set in the desert the fir tree, the pine, and the box tree together: that they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of the LORD hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it. 21 Produce your cause, saith the LORD; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of 22 Jacob. Let them bring them forth, and declare unto us what shall happen: declare ye the former things, what they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; 23 or shew us things for to come. Declare the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods: yea, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and behold it 24 together. Behold, ye are of nothing, and your work of nought: an abomination is he that chooseth you. 25 I have raised up one from the north, and he is come; from the rising of the sun one that calleth upon my name: and he shall come upon rulers as upon mortar, and as the potter 26 treadeth clay. Who hath declared it from the beginning, that we may know? and before-time, that we may say, He is righteous? yea, there is none that declareth, yea, there is none 27 that sheweth, yea, there is none that heareth your words. I first will say unto Zion, Behold, 28 behold them; and I will give to Jerusalem one that bringeth good tidings. And when I look, there is no man; even among them there is no counsellor, that, when I ask of them, can 29 answer a word. Behold, all of them, their works are vanity and nought: their molten images are wind and confusion.

Chap. 41. Until the ends of Israel’s national existence are accomplished, that existence must continue, in spite of hostile nations and their gods, who shall all perish sooner than the chosen people (verse 1-16). However feeble Israel may be in himself Jehovah will protect him, and raise up the necessary instruments for his deliverance and triumph (verses 17-29).

1. Having proved the impotence of idols in a direct address to Israel, Jehovah now summons the idolaters themselves to enter into controversy with Him. The challenge is a general one directed to the whole heathen world, and islands is a poetical variation for lands or at the most for maritime lands or sea-coasts. Silence in this connection implies attention or the fact of listening, which is expressed in Job 33:31. A.

2. It was God, the just avenger of His people, acting as the genius or personification of justice, who raised up Cyrus and gave him his great power. The last clause indicates the tremendous energy of his arms. God will make the nations as dust before his sword. Abruptly the first question, “Who raised up,” etc., breaks off before it is fully expressed, and the Lord answers it by putting in the foreground the idea that His own avenging justice was aroused to bring out a mighty conqueror for the deliverance of His people. “Called him to His foot” is the Hebrew phrase for service and especially in war. H. C.

The Divine appointment, leading, protection and guidance were never more strongly manifested than in the case of Cyrus, whose career, to fulfil which he was raised up, was marked out for him before he was born. It is interesting to observe that in the prophecies of Isaiah there is a gradual preparation for the distinct production of Cyrus by name. In the thirteenth chapter, entitled “The Burden of Babylon,” he and his warriors are produced as the ministers of the Lord’s judgment upon Babylon, without being named and without Cyrus himself being characterized by any distinguishing epithet. But here he is indicated as “the righteous man out of the East,” and in the final prophecy (chaps. 44-46) the Lord not only names Cyrus, but calls him His “shepherd,” His “anointed” and “the man that executeth My counsel,” forming, taken together, a splendid series of characterizing epithets, such as never in Scripture are given to any but the most illustrious of the Hebrew race. Kitto.

3. This the briefest possible history of the wars of Cyrus, pursuing his fleeing enemies and still passing on with safety to himself, for no nation made an effective stand against him. The last clause expresses the amazing rapidity of his movements by saying that he did not seem to pass over the road with his feet, but rather to fly.

6,7. Now the time has come for the idolatrous nations of the world to bring forward their idol gods and invoke them to show their prowess and to measure arms with the Almighty. H. C.—Both verses contain a sarcastic description of the vain appeal of the idolaters to the protection of their tutelary deities. The sarcasm consists in making the idolaters dependent upon idols, which are themselves dependent upon common workmen and the most trivial mechanical operations for their form and their stability. Hence the particular enumeration of the different artificers employed in the manufacture of these deities. A.

8-10. In verses 8 and 9 the Lord accosts His people and describes them, showing what He has done for them. In verse 10 He reaches the substance of what He would say—an exhortation to dismiss all fear and be assured that as God had helped them, so He would still. Verse 9 refers specially to God’s calling the seed of Abraham out from among idolaters (see Josh. 24:2), gathering them from remote lands, Mesopotamia, or Egypt. H. C.

10-20. The scope of these verses is to silence the fears and encourage the faith of the servants of God in their distresses; perhaps it is intended, in the first place, for the support of God’s Israel in captivity; but all that faithfully serve God, “through patience and comfort of this Scripture, may have hope.” And it is addressed to Israel as a single person, that it might the more easily and readily be accommodated and applied by every Israelite indeed to himself. That is a word of caution, counsel and comfort, which is so often repeated, “Fear thou not;” and again (verse 13), “Fear not,” and (verse 14), “Fear not, thou worm Jacob; fear not the threatenings of the enemy, doubt not the promises of thy God; fear not that thou shalt perish in thine affliction, or that the promise of thy deliverance shall fail.” It is against the mind of God that His people should be a timorous people. H.

10. “Fear thou not, for I am with thee,” here is an antidote for all fears. When tempted to fret because of withholdings or inflictions, or apparent inequalities of providence, let the words “Be not dismayed, for I am thy God,” calm and satisfy the soul. And if faintness in sore trial or difficult service steals over the soul, remember who hath said, “I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of My righteousness.” Cox.

The soul which has such a relation to God as that God says to him, “I am thy God,” can never die. The mere fact that between me and God, through His Spirit, there has come this close, intimate, marvellous connection, is the great guarantee of everlasting life. It is impossible that there should ever come the cessation and the interruption of that fellowship. All religion has immortality in it. God will not slay His own child. If the Spirit is mine here, then the spirit in which that Spirit dwells is gifted with immortality by its indwelling; and the Temple that God has entered shall never be desecrated or cast down.

Look at this twofold encouragement, “I am with thee and I am thy God,” and “I will strengthen thee, help thee, and uphold thee.” Look at the majesty with which the sovereign autocratic I, I, I, keeps rolling forth. God puts His own great being as a shelter and a breakwater between us and that great sea of danger without. Get behind that great Breakwater, for it is quiet riding within. I, I, My own magnificent personality, that is the only thing that can make you strong. Only one antagonist can master fear, and that is faith. And only one Being can evoke faith, and the old word has it in all its beauty and simplicity, “I will trust,” and so I will not be afraid. If I trust I find out the “soul of goodness in the thing that is evil,” and I cannot be afraid of what He sends me. “I will be with thee, be not dismayed, for I am thy God.” And that is beautiful! A single man can lay hold of God, can put out an unpresumptuous hand and say, “I claim Thee for mine!” A. M.

What the soul needs is not occasional, but perpetual aid. Its wants never intermit, its enemies are always at hand, its temptations are omnipresent. The moment never comes when it can stand alone. Essential weakness is its own nature, separate from God. Its safety is in a wondrous capacity to be filled, inspired and energized by God. To be thus divinely possessed and used is its true life and power. But that the life and power may be continuous, the Divine indwelling must be perpetual. W. W. Patton.

Those who believe in Christ have the promise of eternal life in Him. In hours of relaxed diligence they perhaps let it slip; but under real pressure faith revives and grasps the promise again. They may be humbled and distressed, and they will acknowledge that they have brought this on themselves; but they are persuaded that He is faithful who promised, and so will not cast them off. D. F.

I may be faint and weary, but my God cannot. I may fluctuate and alter as to my frames and feelings, but my Redeemer is unchangeably the same always. I might utterly fail and come to nothing, if left to myself. But I cannot be so left to myself. He will renew my strength, either by changing my weakness into strength or by enduing me with His own power. He is wise to foresee and provide for all my dangers. He is rich to relieve and succor me in all my wants. He is faithful to perfect and perform all His promises. He is blessed and immortal, to enrich my poor desponding soul with blessedness and immortality. A. Serle.

The grace which God gives is for the real occasions of life. To forget this is to make the whole of our moral and religious life morbid and unreal. When God sends us work, He sends us strength to do it; and when He sends us trouble, He sends us strength to bear it. For troubles which we imagine for ourselves, and for work we imagine for ourselves, we must go for strength to our imagination—not to Him. R. W. Dale.—There are only two salves for sorrow, prayer and work. Trust in God and keep doing are the best recipes for every human care. There are no wounds of the spirit which they will not heal. Strength, fortitude, patience, resignation, are as sure to be vouchsafed to the sufferers who earnestly pray for them, and at the same time are diligent in the performance of their temporal tasks, as the harvest is to follow the planting of the seed. Anon.

14. “Fear not, saith the Lord.” We see there is no remedy for this fear but the voice and word of the Lord; only His encouragement can hold us up in the conflict, and no created power will bear us up in the strait; His voice and word give boldness and courage. Let us not, because of our unworthiness, refuse the promise. If it were for our deservings, it were not grace. Labor indeed to be sensible of thy weakness and unworthiness, that thou may the better take the promise. Seeing God knows thy weakness, unworthiness and every evil that troubles thee, and meets them with, “Fear not,” take heart—strive on! Dickson.

The trouble which we bear rightly with God’s help gives new hope. If we have made our sorrow an occasion for learning, by living experience, somewhat more of His exquisitely varied and ever-ready power to aid and bless, then it will teach us firmer confidence in these inexhaustible resources, which we have thus once more proved. If in my sorrow I have been able to keep quiet because I have had hold of God’s hand, and if in that unstruggling submission I have found that from His hand I have been upheld and had strength above my own infused into me, then my memory will give the threads with which Hope weaves her bright web. I build upon two things, God’s unchangeableness and His help already received; and upon these foundations I may wisely and safely rear a palace of hope which shall never prove a castle in the air. The past, when it is God’s past, is the surest pledge of the future. Because He has been with us in six troubles, therefore we may be sure that in seven He will not forsake us. The light of hope is the brightness, the face of God. A. M.

14. The word goel (redeemer) would suggest to a Hebrew reader the ideas of a near kinsman (Lev. 25 : 24, 25) and of deliverance from bondage by the payment of a ransom. Its highest application occurs here and in Job 19 : 25. The reference to the Son of God, although it might not be perceptible of old, is now rendered necessary by the knowledge that this act even under the old dispensation is always referred to the same person of the Trinity. A.

“The Holy One of Israel.” This title occurs fourteen times in the earlier, fifteen times in these later prophecies, elsewhere only twice in Jeremiah, and also in Ps. 71 : 22 ; 78 : 41. It is here the seal, first of God’s threatenings, and next of His glorious promises. The title is both emphatic, and inwrought into the texture of the prophecy (41 : 14, 16, 20 ; 43 : 3, 14 ; 45 : 11 ; 55 : 5 ; 60 : 14). Birks.

15. The image presented is the strange but strong one of a down-trodden worm reducing hills to powder, the essential idea being that of a weak and helpless object overcoming the most disproportionate obstacles by strength derived from another. In verse 16 this figure is carried out and completed. The mountains, having been completely threshed, are winnowed, in the usual Oriental mode, by being thrown to the wind. Israel, on the other hand, is safe, not through his own strength, but in that of his protector, in whom—i.e., in his relation to whom he finds his highest happiness and honor. A.

15. It matters not what strength they have or want to whom the promise is made, for the whole strength stands in the promise. And when God threatens, it matters not what strength be in the party threatened; for albeit they were as mountains, yet He who threatens can make a worm thresh them; God’s flail can ding them all in dust. Look never how weak or how strong those are to whom God speaks, for the weak shall be strong, and the strong shall become weak.

16. “And thou shalt rejoice in the Lord, shalt glory in the Holy One.” Rejoice is for the time bygone and present, and glory is for the time to come; which lets us see, that the fruit or right use-making of our delivery past, is to make us rejoice for the present, and glory for the time to come. And indeed, the godly, if they will not look to themselves, but to God, may rejoice for time bygone, and glory for time to come. Dickson.

17. There is nothing in the text or context to deprive the passage of its genuine and full sense as a general promise, tantamount to saying, When My people feel their need, I will be present to supply it. Such a promise those in exile could not fail to find appropriate in their case; but it is equally appropriate in others, and especially to the glorious deliverance of the Church from the fetters of the old economy. A.

19,20. He plants all the choicest trees in precisely the most unlikely situations, where you would least of all expect them. With trees, will return even to the ancient deserts rains, vegetable growths, fertility, verdure and beauty. God makes these extraordinary superhuman changes that all men may know that this is His almighty hand, working to new-create where need be, for the relief, comfort and joy of His trusting people.

21,22. The conception of a public hearing as before a tribunal appears again. The Lord demands of His opponents that they do their best; bring forward their strongest proofs; and especially He calls on them now to show if they have prescience of the future—the power of prophecy.

23. The challenge, “Do good, or do evil,” we must consider as addressed to idol gods. Let them really show that they do anything, good or evil, and they shall have all credit for it. The implication here—affirmed in the strongest form in verse 24—is that they are mere nothings, utterly powerless for any result, even the least possible, good or evil. H. C.

25. I have raised up one from the north, etc.** Cyrus is represented here as coming from “the north,” and from the “east;” he was born of two different people, the Persians by his father, the Medes by his mother.