Isaiah chapters 48 and 49
Throughout the book of Isaiah, we’ve been seeing many incredible prophecies. God has been talking about delivering his people from Babylon. In fact, God is telling Israel, even before they are exiled to Babylon that he will deliver them from their captivity in Babylon. This is the prophetic aspect of this book and it is this very notion of God telling Israel what’s going to happen before it does that causes many liberal scholars to say that Isaiah must’ve been written after the fact. They start with the presupposition that there is no supernatural and if they even believe that there is a God, how could he know the future? But God mentions Cyrus by name approximately 150 years before he even existed.
The chapters up to and including 48 have been talking about the deliverer who is going to deliver the Israelites from Babylon. The following chapters are going to talk about another deliverer the deliverer of all mankind from sin, specifically Jesus the Messiah.
Let’s pray… speak to us Lord…
Let’s read verses 1 & 2
Isaiah 48:1-2 (NASB95) 1 “Hear this, O house of Jacob, who are named Israel And who came forth from the loins of Judah, Who swear by the name of the LORD And invoke the God of Israel, But not in truth nor in righteousness. 2 “For they call themselves after the holy city And lean on the God of Israel; The LORD of hosts is His name.
Here we see God saying listen up, hear this. God is trying to get their attention. God comes at them with this strong wording “O house of Jacob, who are named Israel” their very name was supposed to reflect their relationship with God . “And who came forth from the loins of Judah”, interesting when it says, came forth from the lions of Judah, it literally says from the waters of Judah. Then it says , “Who swear by the name of the LORD And invoke (or call upon) the God of Israel, But not in truth nor in righteousness.” The nation of Israel, had received so much in terms of God‘s word, God’s law, the land, the various interventions and promises, yet they are not genuine in their faith. They’re not steadfast in following God. In a very similar way, we as a nation have received so many blessings from God and yet in large part we have not followed the Lord.
Verses 3-5
Isaiah 48:3-5 (NASB95) 3 “I declared the former things long ago And they went forth from My mouth, and I proclaimed them. Suddenly I acted, and they came to pass. 4 “Because I know that you are obstinate, And your neck is an iron sinew And your forehead bronze, 5 Therefore I declared them to you long ago, Before they took place I proclaimed them to you, So that you would not say, ‘My idol has done them, And my graven image and my molten image have commanded them.’
God has given Israel chance after chance, evidence after evidence so they could have and should have known God and trusted and followed him. Can you imagine attributing the works of God to an idol to a statue to an image? When God says you have a neck of iron (unbending), and a forehead of brass, I can just imagine God rapping his knuckles on their forehead, saying hello, anyone in there? How often am I like that?
Verses 6-8
Isaiah 48:6-8 (NASB95) 6 “You have heard; look at all this. And you, will you not declare it? I proclaim to you new things from this time, Even hidden things which you have not known. 7 “They are created now and not long ago; And before today you have not heard them, So that you will not say, ‘Behold, I knew them.’ 8 “You have not heard, you have not known. Even from long ago your ear has not been open, Because I knew that you would deal very treacherously; And you have been called a rebel from birth.
For the past few chapters, God has been calling his people and encouraging them to trust him because he is fully able to deliver them from Babylon and they aren’t even in Babylon in captivity yet. God is explaining his grace and mercy. How that would be displayed in his delivering them from Babylon. Even using a pagan gentile named Cyrus to deliver them. They were no different than us. They had a rebelliousness problem, a sin problem, and we can be rebellious and sinful. And we need a deliverer for that problem just like they needed to be delivered from the captivity and bondage in Babylon. God tells them all of this ahead of time because he knew that they wouldn’t believe or accept that he could use a pagan gentile as their deliverer.
Look at verse 9
Isaiah 48:9 (NASB95) “For the sake of My name I delay My wrath, And for My praise I restrain it for you, In order not to cut you off.
Let’s ponder this verse for a moment; why doesn’t God just wipe them out?
How is it for his name‘s sake?
How is it to his praise?
There are some identifying traits of the God of the Bible:
- In Ephesians, it says that he is rich in Mercy
- Throughout the psalms, it says he is worthy of praise
So he shows mercy because that is in his nature, and he does this so that he would receive the praise and the glory.
We are benefactors of God’s mercy. God demonstrated his own love toward us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. Not only did we not deserve his mercy, but while we were in our sin, Christ gave his life for us.
Now verses 10 and 11
Isaiah 48:10-11 (NASB95) “Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. For My own sake, for My own sake, I will act; For how can My name be profaned? And My glory I will not give to another.
So God refined them not through literal fire as you would do with silver, but through trials through trouble through difficulty and affliction.
There was a meme someone from my Bible study group at Philips sent me a long time ago that went something like this, “While refining silver, how does the silversmith know when the silver is pure? Answer: when he can see his reflection in the molten silver.” Believe it or not that is true. When someone is refining silver they can know that it is pure when they heat it up and the silver becomes molten or liquid when the surface of the silver becomes reflective like a mirror they can tell it’s pure. That is such a picture of how we are supposed to be. We were designed and built and created in the image of God; we were meant to reflect his character and his nature.
this concept that affliction is for our good is stated in so many ways and so many places throughout the scriptures…
Romans 8:18 (NASB95) For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
Psalms 119:71 (NASB95) It is good for me that I was afflicted, That I may learn Your statutes.
Romans 5:3-4 (NASB95) 3 And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; 4 and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope;
1 Peter 3:17-18 (NASB95) 17 For it is better, if God should will it so, that you suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing what is wrong. 18 For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;
Returning to our text…
Isaiah 48:12-13 (NASB95) 12 “Listen to Me, O Jacob, even Israel whom I called; I am He, I am the first, I am also the last. 13 “Surely My hand founded the earth, And My right hand spread out the heavens; When I call to them, they stand together.
First of all, why does God say, listen to me, I am the first and I am the last, I am the creator of heaven and earth? God is really giving Israel the justification or reason they ought to listen. He’s giving his credentials. He has the right to tell them this.
We as well ought to listen to what he says continuing in verse 14…
Isaiah 48:14 (NASB95) “Assemble, all of you, and listen! Who among them has declared these things? The LORD loves him; he will carry out His good pleasure on Babylon, And His arm will be against the Chaldeans.
In this verse, God loves someone who will carry out his plan and purpose against Babylon. Who is it talking about here again? This is speaking of Cyrus.
God is going to raise up a man specifically Cyrus to conquer the Babylonian empire and one of the first things he’s gonna do once he gains control is he’s going to release the Jews so they can go back home because their 70 years of exile is up
The next two verses 15 & 16 are included...
Isaiah 48:15-16 (NASB95) 15 “I, even I, have spoken; indeed I have called him, I have brought him, and He will make his ways successful. 16 “Come near to Me, listen to this: From the first I have not spoken in secret, From the time it took place, I was there. And now the Lord GOD has sent Me, and His Spirit.”
A little thing here about prophecy and God‘s sovereignty, it says here that I have brought him, and he will make his ways successful. So not only does God speak about what’s gonna happen in advance it’s not just that God has this foreknowledge; God doesn’t just look down through the corridors of time, he actually enables and works providentially to bring his will and his decree to pass.
Also, right here in this verse we have an Old Testament scriptural basis and foundation for the doctrine of the Trinity. We have the Lord God and we have the speaker, “me”, and we have the spirit. So this is an old testament picture of the Trinity.
Verse 17…
Isaiah 48:17 (NASB95) Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, “I am the LORD your God, who teaches you to profit, Who leads you in the way you should go.
What God says is meant to be for our profit for our benefit for our good. God‘s words are to teach us the right way to go. I don’t always have the answer. I don’t always even know the right way to go in terms of living out the scripture, but I’ve entrusted my life to Christ. I’ve committed my life to the Lord and in that way everything I do is in his hands and the principles I live by are from his word. I guess what I’m trying to say here is I don’t always have a particular scripture verse to back up everything I do, but I live by faith and that’s what God wants us all to do.
Verses 18-19
Isaiah 48:18-19 (NASB95) 18 “If only you had paid attention to My commandments! Then your well-being would have been like a river, And your righteousness like the waves of the sea. 19 “Your descendants would have been like the sand, And your offspring like its grains; Their name would never be cut off or destroyed from My presence.”
If they would have only paid attention to God‘s commandments to the law, don’t kill, don’t steal, Don’t use God‘s name in vain, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it Holy, don’t commit adultery, don’t have idols, put God first, don’t covet, honor your father and mother, don’t lie.
What do those rules do for us? They certainly don’t justify us because we’ve all broken most, If not all of them. they show us our need for a savior. They teach us to rely on God and to repent and turn to him every time we’ve fallen short. But if Israel and we as well were to obey, we would see that they are for our benefit, and they would have been the recipient of God’s promised blessings.
We are the recipients of spiritual blessings
Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,
How our unbelief and lack of attention to the word might limit or hinder our blessings, conversely, our attention to and obedience to the word of God would allow God‘s blessing in our life. All this In Christ Jesus who is the Word!
Now verses 20-23
Isaiah 48:20-22 (NASB95) 20 Go forth from Babylon! Flee from the Chaldeans! Declare with the sound of joyful shouting, proclaim this, Send it out to the end of the earth; Say, “The LORD yhas redeemed His servant Jacob.” 21 They did not thirst when He led them through the deserts. He made the water flow out of the rock for them; He split the rock and the water gushed forth. 22 “There is no peace for the wicked,” says the LORD.
God is saying and telling how he will watch over and care for the captives as they return to Israel from captivity, just as he did when the children of Israel left Egypt and returned to the land of Canaan. Conversely, those who decide not to return to Israel from their captivity in Babylon, they will have no peace.
To us, God offers peace if we will just be obedient and escape the bondage to sin by faith in Christ Jesus, the prince of peace!
Chapter 49
Isaiah 49:1-2 (NASB95) 1 Listen to Me, O islands, And pay attention, you peoples from afar. The LORD called Me from the womb; From the body of My mother He named Me. 2 He has made My mouth like a sharp sword, In the shadow of His hand He has concealed Me; And He has also made Me a select arrow, He has hidden Me in His quiver.
Do you sense a shift here in the message? Now all of a sudden, we’re talking to the islands or the coastlands and the peoples from afar. For several chapters, the focus has been on the person who would deliver Israel from their captivity in Babylon. Now we’re hearing about the coming deliverer of Israel, the messiah. This coming deliverer isn’t only for Israel.
When we think about this phrase “ he has made my mouth like a sharp sword”, immediately I’m sure for you as well as myself, the picture in revelation chapter 1, where Christ is identified as the one with the sharp two edged sword coming out of his mouth comes to mind.
Hebrews 4:12 (NASB95) For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
God’s word can cut, just like a surgeon’s scalpel. This can be painful, but beneficial. There can be healing through a sharp incision. Cut out the injured, diseased or worn out parts, and in the case of knee replacement like Randy just had the other day, they replaced it with a brand new, functional knee. You and I in our humanity in our sinful human nature need heart replacement. Only by God‘s word can we receive a new tender, soft heart of flesh? As it says in Ezekiel chapter 36, verse 26.
Also, this idea that he was concealed and hidden in a quiver to me, talks about a few things; one aspect is that Christ and his first coming, was kind of concealed and hidden in the Old Testament; hidden in plain view if you will. Also, Christ’s coming the first time some 2024 years ago, was hidden in large part from the eyes of the Jews.
Isaiah 49:3-4 (NASB95) 3 He said to Me, “You are My Servant, Israel, In Whom I will show My glory.” 4 But I said, “I have toiled in vain, I have spent My strength for nothing and vanity; Yet surely the justice due to Me is with the LORD, And My reward with My God.”
after having read these verses We can have a little bit of understanding for our Jewish friends for being confused when they get to Isaiah chapter 53 and they try to interpret the servant in that chapter as the nation Israel. But Jesus held them responsible for not recognizing his first coming though. Israel did not succeed in reaching the nations. So These words “I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and in vain; yet surely my just reward is with the LORD”, directly apply to them, but these words also kind of indicate a sense of disappointment and discouragement that Jesus was tempted to feel that all his effort was for naught. But we know he accomplished exactly what God had planned and promised.
Isaiah 49:5-7 (NASB95) 5 And now says the LORD, who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant, To bring Jacob back to Him, so that Israel might be gathered to Him (For I am honored in the sight of the LORD, And My God is My strength), 6 He says, “It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant To raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also make You a light of the nations So that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” 7 Thus says the LORD, 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 the LORD who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel who has chosen You.”
Obviously we have another ‘servant’ here other than Israel, because this servant is going to bring Jacob or Israel back to himself. This is messiah Jesus and he is honored in the sight the Lord and he did claim God as his strength. How can God claim God as his strength? Jesus in his humanity trusted in and relied on the Lord God as his strength. I just wanna emphasize here, though that Jesus mission was not only to Israel, and it was not only to the Gentiles. His target audience is humanity. And he was to bring light and life to us. He came to purchase us back from sin, and to be the one that we sanctify as holy in our lives. From the greatest to the least Jesus came for all. Yet he was despised and abhorred by those he came to save. This was claimed as fulfilled in Acts 13:47 (NASB95) “For so the Lord has commanded us, ‘I HAVE PLACED YOU AS A LIGHT FOR THE GENTILES, THAT YOU MAY BRING SALVATION TO THE END OF THE EARTH.’”
Isaiah 49:8-13 (NASB95) 8 Thus says the LORD, “In a favorable time I have answered You, And in a day of salvation I have helped You; And I will keep You and give You for a covenant of the people, To restore the land, to make them inherit the desolate heritages; 9 Saying 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. 10 “They will not hunger or thirst, Nor will the scorching heat or sun strike them down; For He who has compassion on them will lead them And will guide them to springs of water. 11 “I will make all My mountains a road, And My highways will be raised up. 12 “Behold, these will come from afar; And lo, these will come from the north and from the west, And these from the land of Sinim.” 13 Shout for joy, O heavens! And rejoice, O earth! Break forth into joyful shouting, O mountains! For the LORD has comforted His people And will have compassion on His afflicted.
I like to stress to people not to wait or put off getting right with God. Verse 8 is quoted in 2 Corinthians 6:2 (NASB95) for He says, “AT THE ACCEPTABLE TIME I LISTENED TO YOU, AND ON THE DAY OF SALVATION I HELPED YOU.” Behold, now is “THE ACCEPTABLE TIME,” behold, now is “THE DAY OF SALVATION”--
“To those who are bound and in darkness”… sometimes it’s hard for us to comprehend just how dark and evil mankind can be. We live in a nation that has a Christian history and I believe sometimes we just take that for granted. There are places in the world that have not been so heavily reached by the gospel where Satan has a much stronger foothold. As this nation departs further and further from the Lord, this will become a darker and darker place.
Then verse 10 is directly quoted in Revelation 7:16 (NASB95) “They will hunger no longer, nor thirst anymore; nor will the sun beat down on them, nor any heat;
The heat of the sun can be oppressive. We don’t necessarily experience that here in the great Northwest. But I can remember a time when Julie and I lived in an area of Southern California called the inland empire, which is about 75 miles east of Los Angeles. It’s very desert area and in the summer it could get up over 100°. I remember getting out of an air conditioned car one time and that sun was beating down on my back and it was just painful. God is the protector from the attack of the elements.
Isaiah 49:14-21 But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me,
And the Lord has forgotten me.”
15 “Can a woman forget her nursing child
And have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget, but I will not forget you.
16 “Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands;
Your walls are continually before Me.
17 “Your builders hurry;
Your destroyers and devastators
Will depart from you.
18 “Lift up your eyes and look around;
All of them gather together, they come to you.
As I live,” declares the Lord,
“You will surely put on all of them as jewels and bind them on as a bride.
19 “For your waste 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.
20 “The 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.’
21 “Then you will say in your heart,
‘Who has begotten these for me,
Since I have been bereaved of my children
And am barren, an exile and a wanderer?
And who has reared these?
Behold, I was left alone;
From where did these come?’”
As crazy as it would be for a nursing mother to forget her child, it’s even more crazy to think that the Lord might forget his promises to Israel and to us as well.
Sometimes we can feel as though the Lord has forsaken us…
Health difficulties
Family conflicts
Stresses at work
When we look back from eternity, we will see that the Lord was not only with us, but He carried us through those times.
Even more graphic; See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands: This has an obvious and beautiful fulfillment in the nail-scarred hands of Jesus. As Jesus told Thomas in a post-resurrection appearance, look at My hands (John 20:27). When we see the nail-scarred hands of Jesus, we see how He has inscribed us on the palms of His hands. With such love, how could God ever forget His people?
Your walls are continually before Me: The walls refer to the walls of the city of Jerusalem, which figuratively speak of the health, the strength, the prosperity, and the security of God’s people. God is always mindful of the condition of His people, despite the objections of a doubting Zion.
Isaiah 49:22-26 Thus says the Lord God,“Behold, I will lift up My hand to the nations
And set up My standard to the peoples;
And they will bring your sons in their bosom,
And your daughters will be carried on their shoulders.
23 “Kings 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 the Lord;
Those who hopefully wait for Me will not be put to shame.24 “Can the prey be taken from the mighty man,
Or the captives of a tyrant be rescued?”
25 Surely, thus says the Lord,“Even the captives of the mighty man will be taken away,
And the prey of the tyrant will be rescued;
For I will contend with the one who contends with you,
And I will save your sons.
26 “I will feed your oppressors with their own flesh,
And they will become drunk with their own blood as with sweet wine;
And all flesh will know that I, the Lord, am your Savior
And your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”
Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away: Babylon, the mighty empire, had taken Zion captive. But even they shall be taken away. God will show His strength and love for Zion by giving unto Babylon what Babylon gave unto Zion, even though they thought it unlikely, as shown by the question of Isaiah 49:24.
i. This was true for Zion being released from Babylon; it is even more true for us who’ve been set free from captivity to Satan. Jesus spoke of spoiling Satan in Luke 11:21-22: When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are in peace. But when a stronger than he comes upon him and overcomes him, he takes from him all his armor in which he trusted, and divides his spoils.
