NOTES for Isa 43:1-28
At first sight, today's passage sounds paradoxical: God, who is returning the remnant of His people to the land of the fathers (verses 1–7), reproaches them for betrayal and apostasy, as though He cannot quite bring Himself to forgive those who, it would seem, had already become in exile the new people they were meant to become (verses 23–24; 26–28). Yet on closer reading the answer can readily be found in the text: it turns out that the people deserve no credit at all for what is happening (verses 23–25). In exile there truly could be no question of sacrifices, which God did not require (verses 23–24). The only thing demanded of the faithful in that period was that they not hinder God from acting by their sins. But as we can see (verse 24), even this went badly for them, if they managed it at all.
Such preaching must undoubtedly have come as something like a cold shower to the returnees to whom it was addressed. They were utterly convinced that they had done everything necessary to become the very remnant of whom the pre-exilic prophets had spoken. This was, indeed, what everyone in Babylon who had preserved the faith of the fathers believed. Those who, after Cyrus's decree, resolved to go to Judah to rebuild the city and the Temple felt themselves, so to speak, the “remnant of the remnant”: they alone had gone while the others remained, and those making the journey probably did not doubt for a moment that, if the Messiah did not meet them while they were still on the road to Judah, He would certainly not delay His coming once they were there.
And, of course, they attributed all their victories not only to God but also to themselves. They were ordinary religious people, after all, and religious consciousness has always tended to regard religion as a sphere for the application of human effort just like any other, with the sole difference that in this sphere the effort must be applied in a special way and according to special rules. Thus in religion, as everywhere else and in every age, there have been notions of success and failure, of those who are ahead and those who lag behind, and naturally of the achievements attained by various activists in this field.
The returnees traveling to Judah were sure that they had achieved much. Isaiah does not merely diminish these achievements; he simply reduces them to nothing. Speaking on God's behalf, he says that they have done absolutely nothing for God and have only hindered Him, while He has done everything Himself. Thus not only their triumphant return to the land of the fathers but they themselves, together with all their religious achievements, were created wholly and entirely by Him. The truth proved bitter, but without acknowledging it they could not enter the Kingdom. For the Kingdom is received as a gift, not earned by merit.