Isaiah 41:8 to 13 · Passage · Fear
Do Not Fear, for I Am with You
Isaiah 41:8 to 13 is part of the LORD's speech in Isaiah 41, where He summons the nations to judgment.
One chapter earlier, Israel had complained, “My way is hidden from the LORD, and my claim is ignored by my God” (Isaiah 40:27).
For I am the LORD your God, who takes hold of your right hand and tells you: Do not fear, I will help you.
- The passage
- Isaiah 41:8 to 13, Isaiah 41:1 to 7, Isaiah 41:14
- Book
- Isaiah
- Hold in memory
- Isaiah 41:10, Isaiah 41:13
Summary
Isaiah 41:8 to 13 answers fear with the speaker. The LORD gives two commands not to fear, and each comes with its reason, that He is with His people and that He is their God. Three promises follow, to strengthen, to help and to uphold, and the enemies who rage against Israel are told they will come to nothing.
- The words are addressed to Israel as the LORD's servant, chosen in the line of Abraham (Isaiah 41:8 to 9).
- The servant of Isaiah 41:8 has been read as the nation of Israel and as the believing people within it.
- Readers differ on whether the prophet Isaiah wrote chapters 40 to 66 or a later prophet wrote them near the end of the exile.
The Servant Addressed
The LORD speaks to Israel by name before He gives a single command.
This study takes up Isaiah 41:8 to 13, a passage of the trial of fear. It asks what God gives a frightened people in place of their fear, and why they should believe Him.
The study follows the six verses in their order and sets them in their chapter. It reads the Hebrew verbs of Isaiah 41:10 and explains what each one gives. It also sets out two questions on which interpreters differ, with the holders of each reading and the objection to it.
The LORD calls Israel “My servant”, Jacob “whom I have chosen” and the “descendant of Abraham My friend” (Isaiah 41:8). He reminds them that He “brought you from the ends of the earth” and says, “I have chosen and not rejected you” (Isaiah 41:9).
Then come the commands of Isaiah 41:10. Of the enemies the LORD says that “all who rage against you will be ashamed and disgraced”, and that Israel will seek them “but will not find them” (Isaiah 41:11 to 12).
Isaiah 41:13 gives the command again, and Isaiah 41:14 gives it once more.
Do not fear, O worm of Jacob, O few men of Israel. I will help you,” declares the LORD. “Your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.The verse names the people as weak and few, and in the same breath names their Redeemer, so the command meets them where they stand.
Two Commands and Three Promises
The Hebrew of Isaiah 41:10 shows what each command and each promise gives.
In Isaiah 41:10 two Hebrew verbs name what the frightened do, and three name what God will do for them.
| The line | The Berean words | The Hebrew verb | What it gives |
|---|---|---|---|
| First command | “Do not fear, for I am with you” | yare, to fear | The reason is presence |
| Second command | “do not be afraid, for I am your God” | shaah, to gaze at or about, as one looking for help | The reason is the covenant bond |
| First promise | “I will strengthen you” | amats, to be alert in body or in courage | Strength for the one who is weak |
| Second promise | “I will surely help you” | azar, to surround, to protect or aid | Help from outside the one who fears |
| Third promise | “I will uphold you with My right hand of righteousness” | tamak, to grasp or sustain | A hand that holds the one who would fall |
The three promises are in the Hebrew perfect, glossed “I have strengthened you”, “I have helped you” and “I have supported you”. The Berean text renders them as promises, since God speaks of His coming help as already settled.
The Islands and Their Idols
The chapter sets a trembling world beside a chosen people.
The second half of Isaiah opens with “Comfort, comfort My people” (Isaiah 40:1).
The islands see and fear; the ends of the earth tremble. They approach and come forward.The verse shows the world trembling at God's summons just before He speaks to His own, so the command of Isaiah 41:10 meets a frightened world.
The nations meet their fear by making gods. The craftsman encourages the goldsmith, and of the finished idol it is said, “He nails it down so it will not be toppled” (Isaiah 41:7). Later in the chapter the idols are challenged to tell what is coming, and the verdict is “you are nothing” (Isaiah 41:24).
Israel's God holds His people up, where the nations have to hold their gods up. The conqueror whom the LORD stirs up from the east (Isaiah 41:2) is later named as Cyrus, of whom the LORD says, “My shepherd will fulfill all that I desire” (Isaiah 44:28).
The title “Abraham My friend” stands also in the prayer of Jehoshaphat (2 Chronicles 20:7), and James writes that Abraham “was called a friend of God” (James 2:23).
The Command in the Danger
The command of Isaiah 41:10 is given to a people whose enemies rage and wage war against them.
Charles Spurgeon preached on Isaiah 41:10 in 1867, in the sermon The Sweet Harp of Consolation. He said, “‘Fear not’ is a frequent utterance of the Divine mouth. ‘I am with you’ is the fervent, soul-cheering argument to support it.”
Fear can weigh on the body and the mind as well as the soul. Where it does, a physician's care belongs beside prayer, and the LORD's promise of help is never a reason to refuse that care.
Now this is what the LORD says— He who created you, O Jacob, and He who formed you, O Israel: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are Mine!Two chapters later the same command comes with a new reason, redemption and a name, so the promise of Isaiah 41 is repeated to the same people.
The Servant and the Date of the Chapters
Two readings concern the servant of Isaiah 41:8, and two concern the date of Isaiah 40 to 66.
The servant of Isaiah 41:8 is the nation of Israel in exileAlbert Barnes
Albert Barnes, in his Notes, Explanatory and Practical (1832 to 1869), called Isaiah 41:8 “an address directly to the Jews”. He read Isaiah 41:10 as “addressed primarily to the exiled Jews during their long and painful captivity in Babylon”.
The objection: the words “My Servant” and “My Chosen One” return in Isaiah 42:1, and Matthew 12:18 applies them to Jesus, so the title passes from the nation to one Person within a chapter.
The servant is the believing Israel and the church after itJerome
Jerome, in his Commentary on Isaiah, read the worm of Isaiah 41:14 as a picture of the apostles. He wrote that the worm “is called the chorus of the Apostles because of their humility”.
Chapters 40 to 66 come from an author near the end of the exileS. R. Driver
S. R. Driver, in An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament (eighth edition, 1898), held that the chapters are “the work of an author writing towards the close of the exile”. His ground was the prophet's standpoint, since “the author will have lived in the situation which he thus presupposes”.
The objection: the chapter rests its case against the idols on God's telling the future before it comes (Isaiah 41:22 to 23), so a prophecy of Cyrus given beforehand is the point of the argument.
Chapters 40 to 66 are Isaiah's prophecy of the exile and of CyrusJamieson, Fausset and Brown
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the chapter as Isaiah's prophecy, a “contrast between the idolatrous nations whom God will destroy by Cyrus, and Israel whom God will deliver by the same man”. John 12:38 to 41 quotes Isaiah 53:1 and Isaiah 6:10 together and names the one prophet Isaiah for both.
The objection: the chapters address a people already in exile, and Driver held that a prophet speaks from the situation he lives in.
Held by the Hand
The passage ends where it began, with the LORD speaking for Himself.
The passage gives frightened people a Person to hold on to. Israel's fear is answered by a God who chose them, stays with them and will not let go of them.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- STEP Bible, the tagged Hebrew Bible (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0.
- STEP Bible brief lexicon of Extended Strongs for Hebrew (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0, with the Strong's glosses.
- Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), on Isaiah 41:8.
- Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832 to 1869), on Isaiah 41:8 and Isaiah 41:10.
- Jerome, Commentary on Isaiah, on Isaiah 41:14.
- Charles Spurgeon, The Sweet Harp of Consolation, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 760 (1867), on Isaiah 41:10.
- S. R. Driver, An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament, eighth edition (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1898), the chapter on Isaiah.
Keep Studying
Studies3
People and groups8