Isaiah49chapter 49

Isaiah 49:1-2

The Lord hath called me from the womb: The second servant song opens to the isles and the peoples far off, and the servant testifies that the Lord hath called me from the womb and named him before he was born, a distinguishing calling like the one given to Jeremiah. The Lord made his mouth a sharp sword and hid him in the shadow of his hand, made him a polished shaft, and hid him again in his quiver, two images of a weapon kept ready and unused until its hour. The older writers read this concealment as the years before the ministry began, ordained and prepared long before Israel took any notice.

Isaiah 49:3

Thou art my servant, O Israel: The Lord names the servant Israel outright, and this verse is the reason some readings across church history have taken the servant here as the nation itself in a corporate sense, a reading John Calvin discusses in his commentary on this chapter. Verse 6 immediately follows with the same servant sent on a mission to the tribes of Jacob and to Israel, so the two verses together resist any settlement that erases the other, and the exposition carries both readings named side by side. Delitzsch reads the servant across the songs as a figure who narrows from the nation to a faithful remnant to one person, the pyramid his commentary describes.

Isaiah 49:4

I have laboured in vain: The servant answers his own call with a confession of apparent failure: I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain. He does not stop there, and turns the verdict over to the Lord himself, yet surely my judgment is with the Lord, and my work with my God, a pattern the older writers find in every faithful ministry that looks unsuccessful by any count taken too soon. Matthew Henry reads the verse as the true servant's complaint answered by faith rather than by results.

Isaiah 49:5-6

formed me from the womb to be his servant: The Lord who formed the servant from the womb to be his servant gives him first a mission to Jacob, to bring the scattered nation home. Verse 6 calls that mission too small a thing for such a servant and adds a second, wider one in his own words: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth, the very words Paul and Barnabas quote of their own commission at Acts 13:47, verified. The two missions, to Israel and to the nations, stand together in one servant rather than competing for him.

Isaiah 49:7

Kings shall see and arise: The servant despised and abhorred by the nation is the same one before whom kings shall see and arise, and princes shall worship, a reversal the whole song has been building toward. He is called a servant of rulers even while rulers stand up before him, and the ground given is the Lord's own faithfulness, because of the Lord that is faithful, and the Holy One of Israel. Delitzsch reads the verse as the deepest humiliation and the highest exaltation joined in one sentence, the pattern the fourth servant song will carry to its full length in chapter 53.

Isaiah 49:8-9

In an acceptable time have I heard thee: In an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee: the Lord answers his servant and gives him for a covenant of the people, language that reaches beyond one man's lifetime into an office held for others. Paul reads this very verse of the gospel moment itself at 2 Cor 6:2, now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation, applying the servant's hour to his own preaching. The prisoners are told to go forth and those in darkness to show themselves, and the servant's covenant work is described as release before it is described as anything else.

Isaiah 49:10-13

They shall not hunger nor thirst: The regathering is pictured as a flock led by the Lord himself: they shall not hunger nor thirst, and he that hath mercy on them shall lead them by the springs of water, an image the fourth Gospel's Good Shepherd language echoes. Mountains become a highway and the exiles come from the north, the west, and the land of Sinim, a name the older commentators debate between a southern Egyptian region and the far east, without settling it. The song closes as it must, with heaven and earth called to sing because the Lord hath comforted his people.

Isaiah 49:14

The Lord hath forsaken me: But Zion said, The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me: the complaint answers everything just promised, spoken by the very people the promises were for. The comfort chapters have been building toward this exact objection, and the verses that follow answer it directly rather than rebuking it. John Gill reads the complaint as the honest voice of the exile rather than unbelief, a grief the Lord answers with tenderness instead of correction.

Isaiah 49:15-16

Can a woman forget her sucking child: The Lord answers Zion's complaint with the strongest human bond he can name and then surpasses it: can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands is a mark carried permanently on the body itself, which the older writers connect to the nail prints the servant will carry in the songs still to come. Delitzsch reads the image as covenant loyalty made physical, a remembering that cannot be undone by circumstance.

Isaiah 49:17-21

Thy children shall make haste: The children Zion thought lost make haste to return while her destroyers depart, and the land once too empty for its inhabitants will be too narrow for the crowd that comes back to it. Zion herself will be astonished at the increase, who hath begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children, and am desolate, a captive, and removing to and fro, the numbers outrunning anything she could have counted on when she spoke her complaint. Albert Barnes reads the whole unit as the answer to the complaint carried out in detail rather than left as a promise only.

Isaiah 49:22-23

I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles: The Lord lifts up his hand to the Gentiles and sets up his standard to the peoples, and the sons and daughters of Zion are carried home in the arms of the nations that once held them captive. Kings become nursing fathers and queens nursing mothers, bowing with their face toward the earth, an image of homage the older commentators read as royal submission rather than the strict prostration some traditions attached to it. The verse ends on recognition rather than reversal for its own sake: thou shalt know that I am the Lord, for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me.

Isaiah 49:24-26

Shall the prey be taken from the mighty: The question sounds impossible, shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered, and the Lord answers it in his own name: even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee. The oppressors are made to feed on their own violence, a figure of judgment turned back on itself rather than a literal description, and the chapter closes where the servant songs keep closing, with recognition: all flesh shall know that I the Lord am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob. Franz Delitzsch reads the title mighty One of Jacob as a deliberate echo of Jacob's own blessing on Joseph in Genesis 49:24, tying the promise to the patriarchal narrative it grew from.