NOTES for Isa 41:1-29

Printable version

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.

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.

³He pursued them, and passed safely; even by the way that he had not gone with his feet.

⁴Who hath wrought and done it, calling the generations from the beginning? I the LORD, the first, and with the last; I am he.

⁵The isles saw it, and feared; the ends of the earth were afraid, drew near, and came.

⁶They helped every one his neighbour; and every one said to his brother, Be of good courage.

⁷So the carpenter encouraged the goldsmith, and he that smootheth with the hammer him that smote the anvil, saying, It is ready for the sodering: and he fastened it with nails, that it should not be moved.

⁸But thou, Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend.

⁹Thou whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called thee from the chief men thereof, and said unto thee, Thou art my servant; I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away.

¹⁰Fear 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.

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

¹²Thou shalt seek them, and shalt not find them, even them that contended with thee: they that war against thee shall be as nothing, and as a thing of nought.

¹³For I the LORD thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.

¹⁴Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith the LORD, and thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁵Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth: thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff.

¹⁶Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and thou shalt rejoice in the LORD, and shalt glory in the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁷When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the LORD will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them.

¹⁸I will open rivers in 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.

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, and the box tree together:

²⁰That 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.

²¹Produce your cause, saith the LORD; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob.

²²Let them bring them forth, and shew us what shall happen: let them shew 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.

²³Shew 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 together.

²⁴Behold, ye are of nothing, and your work of nought: an abomination is he that chooseth you.

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 treadeth clay.

²⁶Who hath declared from the beginning, that we may know? and beforetime, that we may say, He is righteous? yea, there is none that sheweth, yea, there is none that declareth, yea, there is none that heareth your words.

²⁷The first shall say to Zion, Behold, behold them: and I will give to Jerusalem one that bringeth good tidings.

²⁸For I beheld, and there was no man; even among them, and there was no counseller, that, when I asked of them, could answer a word.

²⁹Behold, they are all vanity; their works are nothing: their molten images are wind and confusion.

Two aspects stand out in the prophecy of Second Isaiah that we read today. The Lord says of Himself that He is the cause of all things: “I, the Lord, am the first, and with the last I am the same.” Cyrus, the Persian king, the “man of righteousness” as the prophet calls him, becomes a prefiguration of the Messiah and Deliverer because he accomplishes what God has determined. And to His people, who believe in the Deliverer, the Holy One of Israel, God says, “Do not fear, for I am with you.” God's people may be small and weak (“you worm Jacob, you few men of Israel”), but strength does not lie in this. “I am with you,” says the Lord, “I will help you.” This is the only truly reliable support and protection.

We cannot help reflecting on another dimension of the sacred text, following the apostle Paul's reflections in chapters 10–11 of the Epistle to the Romans. These prophetic words are spoken at a time when Israel is returning from dispersion to the Promised Land and trying to settle there again. This meets fierce opposition from the peoples who had inhabited Palestine while Israel was in exile and dispersion. “This is our land; we have lived in Palestine for a long time...” they said. With zeal worthy of a better cause, these peoples resisted by every means the resettlement of Jerusalem and Judea.

Then, at the end of the fifth century BC, the Lord said to Israel concerning them: “Behold, all who are incensed against you shall be put to shame and confounded; those who contend with you shall be as nothing and shall perish... those who war against you shall be as nothing at all.” Could this be why those who oppose Israel's existence fail even in our day?

Other notes

For Isa 41:13-20