Three-year Bible reading plan for 4 October 2017

New American Standard Bible (en)

New American Standard Bible (en)

Isaiah, Chapter 49

¹ Salvation Reaches to the End of the Earth, ¹⁴ Promise to Zion

¹ Listen to Me, O islands, And pay attention, you peoples from afar. The LORD called Me from the womb; From the^a Lit inward partsbody 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^b Or sharpenedselect arrow, He has hidden Me in His quiver. ³ He said to Me, “You are My Servant, Israel, In Whom I will^c Or glorify Myselfshow 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.”	1 Isa 42:4 Isa 44:2 Isa 44:24 Isa 46:3 Jer 1:5 2 Isa 11:4 Heb 4:12 Rev 1:16 Rev 2:12 Rev 2:16 Isa 51:16 Hab 3:11 3 Zec 3:8 Isa 44:23 4 Isa 65:23 Isa 35:4 Isa 59:18
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^d Lit lightsmall 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^e Or toof the nations So that My salvation may^f Lit bereach 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.”	5 Isa 44:2 Isa 11:12 Isa 27:12 Isa 43:4 Isa 12:2 6 Psa 37:28 Psa 97:10 Isa 42:6 Isa 51:4 Luk 2:32 Act 13:47 Act 26:23 Isa 48:20 7 Isa 48:17 Psa 22:6-8 Psa 69:7-9 Isa 53:3 Isa 52:15 Isa 19:21 Isa 19:23 Isa 27:13 Isa 66:23
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^g Lit establishrestore 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.	8 Psa 69:13 Co2 6:2 Isa 26:3 Isa 27:3 Isa 42:6 Isa 42:6 Isa 44:26 9 Isa 42:7 Isa 61:1 Luk 4:18 Isa 41:18 10 Isa 33:16 Isa 48:21 Rev 7:16 Psa 121:6 Isa 14:1 Psa 23:2 Isa 40:11 Isa 35:7 Isa 41:17 11 Isa 40:4 Isa 11:16 Isa 19:23 Isa 35:8 Isa 62:10 12 Isa 49:1 Isa 60:4 Isa 43:5 Isa 43:6 13 Isa 44:23 Isa 40:1 Isa 51:3 Isa 51:12 Isa 54:7 Isa 54:8 Isa 54:10
¹⁴ 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^hbuilders 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 asⁱ Lit an ornamentjewels 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^j Lit your bereavementwhom 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; ^k Lit These, where are they?From where did these come?’”	15 Isa 44:21 16 Sol 8:6 Hag 2:23 Psa 48:12 Psa 48:13 Isa 62:6 Isa 62:7 17 Isa 10:6 Isa 37:18 18 Isa 60:4 Joh 4:35 Isa 43:5 Isa 54:7 Isa 60:4 Isa 49:12 Isa 45:23 Isa 54:9 Isa 52:1 Isa 61:10 19 Isa 1:7 Isa 3:8 Isa 5:6 Isa 51:3 Isa 54:1 Isa 54:2 Zec 10:10 Psa 56:1 Psa 56:2 20 Isa 54:1-3 21 Isa 29:23 Isa 54:6 Isa 54:7 Isa 27:10 Ljr 1:1 Isa 5:13 Isa 1:8 Isa 60:8
²² Thus says the Lord^l Heb YHWH, usually rendered LordGOD,“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.	22 Isa 11:10 Isa 11:12 Isa 18:3 Isa 62:10 Isa 14:2 Isa 43:6 Isa 60:4 23 Isa 14:1 Isa 14:2 Isa 60:3 Isa 60:10 Isa 60:11 Isa 45:14 Isa 60:14 Psa 72:9 Mic 7:17 Isa 41:20 Isa 43:10 Isa 60:16 Psa 37:9 Isa 25:9 Isa 26:8 Psa 25:3 Isa 45:17 Joe 2:27
²⁴ “Can the prey be taken from the mighty man, Or the captives of^ma tyrant be rescued?”	24 Mat 12:29 Luk 11:21
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.”	25 Isa 10:6 Isa 14:1 Isa 14:2 Jer 50:33 Jer 50:34 Isa 25:9 Isa 33:22 Isa 35:4 26 Isa 9:4 Isa 14:4 Isa 16:4 Isa 51:13 Isa 54:14 Isa 9:20 Isa 45:6 Eze 39:7 Isa 43:3 Isa 49:7

Read more:Isaiah, Chapter 50

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NOTES

Speaking about his prophetic ministry, Isaiah utters bitter words: "I have labored in vain, and spent my strength for nothing." What disappointed the prophet so deeply? At first glance, it appears that his ministry, on the contrary, was quite successful. He became, in effect...

Speaking about his prophetic ministry, Isaiah utters bitter words: "I have labored in vain, and spent my strength for nothing." What disappointed the prophet so deeply? At first glance, it appears that his ministry, on the contrary, was quite successful. He became, in effect, the prophet of the first aliyah, that first repatriation, that return of the Jews from captivity to the land of their fathers, which everyone, both those who set out for Judea and those who preferred to remain in Babylon, perceived as the triumph of God's people, as the beginning of blessed times that would be crowned by the soon coming of the Messiah.

Isaiah began to speak about the imminent end of the captivity when the Babylonian Empire still seemed unshakable, and when what he had spoken about actually happened, the prophet became a true national hero. But this did not make him glad, and his own words allow us to understand why. He says that God made him a gatherer of the people, the one through whom He wants not only to gather the people but also to renew them spiritually. God wants Yahwism itself to become different, for the witness about Him to resound throughout the whole earth, for His people, a significant part of whom had by that time remained in the communities of an already quite extensive and numerous diaspora, to become His witness for all who seek truth and spiritual life.

Meanwhile, the people did not correspond at all to the task that had been set. There was euphoria over the decree of Cyrus the Great about the return; there were intense, almost feverish messianic expectations. But the closedness of the community was already showing itself, along with a certain contempt for the nations and self-isolation explained by the demand for strict observance of ritual purity. In short, all the traits had already appeared that would later bloom luxuriantly and produce the worst examples of Pharisaic religiosity.

Under such conditions, there could be no question of any witness to the nations, not because there were not enough missionaries, since Jewish mission was quite active over the following centuries, but because these missionaries bore witness to themselves, to their people, to their tradition - in short, to anything at all except the main thing needed for spiritual life: living communion with God and how to find it.

This was not done out of malice or because the missionaries considered those whom they addressed unworthy. They were simply absolutely certain that until those whom they addressed became Jews in every respect just like themselves, no communion with God was possible for them. Thus the mission among the nations that God wanted to organize through His people, scattered throughout the whole civilized world of that time even before Christ's coming, failed. It had to be postponed until Christian times and entrusted to the Church.

About his calling and prophetic ministry, the prophet speaks as of something God had planned even before his birth. No wonder that in Christian tradition this self-testimony of Isaiah took on a messianic sound...

About his calling and prophetic ministry, the prophet speaks as of something God had planned even before his birth. No wonder that in Christian tradition this self-testimony of Isaiah took on a messianic sound: it was not hard to connect the prophet's words both with what Jesus Himself says about Himself and with what other prophets say about the Messiah, above all Isaiah of Jerusalem.

Here an important pattern of spiritual life is reflected. Spiritual life is a system of relationships linking a person with God and with other people. Such relationships form a kind of spiritual fabric within which a person lives spiritual life. It is a life that, like every life, changes the one who lives it. And it is always, in any case, a process directed by God. The only question is the extent of God's participation in that process.

To what extent does He enter a person's spiritual life, and to what extent does He direct it from outside? Here everything depends on the person himself. It is no accident that so much is said about the fact that a person, if he wants communion with God, must let God into his life. This is not an allegory, but a completely concrete truth of spiritual life. The whole question is whether God will direct our life from outside, touching it only as a force external to it, or whether our life will become part of His life. However shocking it may sound, this is exactly the kind of inclusion being discussed. Of course, God does not need our life in itself; He can get along perfectly well without us. But He loves us, and that is the whole point.

He understands that we are the ones who need His life. And He is ready to share it with us. But if we begin to live a shared life with God, it turns out that we become an inseparable part of something conceived and begun long before we appeared in the world. And the more God's element predominates in our shared life with Him, the more something beyond the human predominates in it. Something that cannot be contained entirely within the limits of human nature nevertheless joins itself to that nature and determines its existence.

This is how God enters a person and human life. No wonder that everything said here could be applied first of all to Christ: in Him this entry reached completion, fullness. But every person, insofar as he lets God into his life, also takes part in this process. As much as he can contain. And Isaiah, like every prophet, is no exception. He, like all the other prophets, only anticipates what will be revealed to the world in fullness in Christ.

In the context of the prophecy about the salvation God will accomplish in Christ, Deutero-Isaiah, the unknown author of the second half of the book of the prophet Isaiah, records these stunning words. They are addressed to everyone and to each person, regardless of anything. How often we fall into despair and complaint, take offense at God, because it appears to us that He has abandoned us to fate. And the issue is not only that...

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