Study notes on Isaiah 43-47
Dear Friends,
Today’s devotional is the study notes for yesterday’s adult Sunday school class on Isaiah 43-47. It is a rich passage. Open your Bible and read chapter 43, then read the notes on chapter 43 looking back and forth from notes to Scripture and repeat the process until you have finished. God bless you.
Because of Calvary
John Janney
Adult SS Elective: Isaiah 43:26-47:15
October 23, 2016
(C) Sin condemned (43:26-28)
“Before the word of pardon can be implemented sinners must face their hopelessness before the law.” [Motyer, p. 341]
“Possibly we may imagine a silence in court following verse 26 while the judge waits for the accused to make his defense. But in default of such the prosecution case continued and makes the possibility of verse 25 seem ever more remote…. Since no case has been made out for forgiveness, and the record to date is of unrelieved sin and rebellion, there is only one judgment that can be given…. Thus the court has reached the most dreadful of verdicts: not divine pardon (25) but the divine curse (28),” [Motyer, p. 341]
“The final thrust is deadly, for destruction is the Hebrew term herem, reserved for such objects of judgment as Jericho or the Amalekites, with whom no compromise was to be endured.” [Kidner, p. 658]
(D) Sin overcome (44:1-5)
“The legal verdict of total destruction is not after all the end of the matter. The Lord has a word for Jacob/Israel to hear. And if only they will listen (1) they will learn that there is not need to be afraid (2). It is not judgment that is on its way (43:28) but refreshment (3:as).” [Motyer, p. 341]
“See, the chapter begins with a ‘yet.’ There is a great deal in God’s ‘yets.’ Notwithstanding all the sin and provocation mentioned in the previous chapter, the Lord still reveals his mercy and goodness to his ancient people.” [Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XLII, (1896), p. 56]
“Regardless of Israel’s past…her future lies in her election. Israel is transformed by God’s grace into a new creation. The new nature of the people is described in a threefold way. First, the Spirit of the Lord is poured on the people (v. 3)…. Second, the blessing of God will rest more markedly on their offspring (vv. 3-5). The very process of internal renewal affects generations to come. In contrast to the past generations of faithlessness (43:27), there will now be generations of faithful people, blessed by the Lord. Third, the covenant will be renewed not only with Israel, but also with Gentiles who will call on the Lord and join Israel’s heritage (v. 5).” [VanGemeren, p. 501-502]
“After all these charges, you see, the love of God to his chosen people is still the same. Well might Paul say, ‘I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ Sin is an exceedingly evil and bitter thing, but even that shall not divide us from the love of God, for, ‘while we were yet sinners, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.’ So herein grace triumpheth over sin, and layeth our follies beneath its feet.” [Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XLI, (1895), p. 394]
“…The ‘negative’ reality of cleansing and forgetting the past (25) becomes the positive reality of new life from God. In 3ab the illustration was of new life imparted; now (4) the picture develops into that of new life displayed.” [Motyer, p. 342]
“The outpouring of the Spirit (3) is a glimpse of the new covenant, as in Je. 31:31-34; Ezk. 36:26-27; Joel 2:28-29; and the confessions of allegiance in v 5 are a rare foretaste of the Gentile conversions, like those of Ps. 87:4-6 (where however it is God who enrolls them). The new offspring (3) of Israel will mark the flow of God’s living water, just as a line of trees marks the course of a river (3-4).” [Kidner, p. 658]
“thirsty…dry ground, figures to represent the hopeless condition of the captive people..” [Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 287]
“This verse is in marked contrast to the implied silence of the people when invited to respond in the parallel 43:26…. Membership of the people of god (on the pattern of Isaiah’s remnant, 8:11-20) is a matter of individual commitment. The work of the Spirit of God (3) is evident in individual response and a confessional people. Turning to the Lord (5ac) involves turning to his people (5bd); the one is inseparable from the other…. The flow of the context at this point requires that the reference here is to the offspring of Jacob/Israel, i.e. not Gentiles coming to faith in the Lord and membership of his people (as Ps. 87) but formal Israelites becoming true Israelites, the people of God, through the Spirit of God, becoming all they should be.” [Motyer, p. 342-343]
- Grounded in the sovereignty of God (44:6-47:15)
- Shown in delivering Israel (44:6-28)
(A) The foolish groveling of the heathen (44:6-20)
“In chapters 40 and 41 the folly of idolatry was exposed by contrast with the glory of the Lord. In chapters 43 and 44 the argument is reversed as by contrast with the absurdity of idolatry the glory of the only God shines out. The absurdity in the present case appears at first sight to be the worship of what, had chance been different, would have been used to cook lunch (15-17)…. Because it is what it is, the idol has no power to change the human heart (18-20) but leaves the idolater in the spiritual darkness and deception with which he started (9)….” [Motyer, p. 343]
“The exposure of idolatry in this and the following vss. is inimitably forcible and beautiful. With the most exact disposition of the parts are combined an exactness and vividness of delineation, a pointedness of sarcasm, a force of argument, and a concision and elegance of exposition which entitle the passage to the highest place among the compositions of the seer.” {Henderson in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 288]
“The satire is in the facts not in the tone.” [Motyer, p. 343]
“These verses give the very essence of these chapters, with their emphasis on God as Israel’s champion (Redeemer, p; cf. 41:14); their explicit monotheism (6b, 8b), their stress on prediction (7b) and their reassuring tone towards a diffident Israel (8).” [Kidner, p. 658]
“He is, within himself, every possible power (and uses it as King/father and Redeemer/next-of-kin for the blessing of his people: verse 8). The idols derive from human power and exert no power in return… As first he does not derive his life from elsewhere (contrast the idols; verses 10-17) but it self-existing and self-sufficient; as last he remains at the end, supreme, totally fulfilled.” [Motyer, p. 344]
“The final element in the Lord’s challenge to the idol-gods is a demand for specific examples ― had they, in fact, established and then cared for their people? The Old Testament stresses the exodus event as demonstrating the uniqueness both of the Lord and of Israel…. Unlike the idols (18-20) he did not leave his people in distress. The challenge…about the past…becomes a challenge about the future and the ability to predict.” [Motyer, p. 344]
“The great God challenges all pretended gods to compete with him, and to show that they have ever prophesied or foretold the future. One of the greatest proofs of the inspiration of Scripture, and that our God is the only living and true God, is that the prophecies hitherto have been literally fulfilled. Go to Bashan, or to Edom, or to Sidon, or to Egypt, and wherever you go, you will see that whatsoever the Lord said concerning the ancient nations and peoples and cities has been carried out to the very letter.” [Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XLI, (1895), p. 429]
“Here the same message is preached from the other side, turning the visual appeal of idolatry into an embarrassment…. All worship of things, given by God (9; cf. v 14) and shaped by man contains the same absurdity and blasphemy (cf. Rom. 1:25). Man’s eventual inability to see this (which is as modern as it is ancient) comes of a prior refusal to face it (18-20; cf. Rom. 1:21).” [Kidner, p. 658-659]
“Idols certainly require the care of human hands. There are still shops in the cities of India and China, with this inscription on their sign-boards, ‘Here old gods are repaired and renovated.’” [Leonhard in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 289]
“Isaiah points to the mere humanity of the craftsmen (10-11), their frailty (12) and the man-dominated conceptions governing their theology (13)…. His intention is to achieve the divine; his accomplishment is the material!” [Motyer, p. 347]
“It cannot rise above the material (14-17), which cannot change to become the spiritual (14-15) or change to meet spiritual needs (16-17).” [Motyer, p. 345]
“It cannot rise above the one (10-13) who originated it (10-11), who, though skillful, is frail (12) and only has human beings as a model (13).” [Motyer, p. 345]
“They that make a graven image are all of them vanity. They must be very empty-headed and foolish people, or they would not worship a thing which they have graven with their own hands.” [Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XLI, (1895), p. 430]
“Idolaters are just as wooden and doltish as their idols, or else they would know better than to worship them.” [Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XLI, (1895), p. 430]
“This maker of a god is faint! How utterly ridiculous is the idea that one who can make a god should himself be faint.” [Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XLII, (1896), p. 57]
“The idol is made, then a temple is built, and the idol is put there and chained that he might not be stolen.” [Caleb Morris in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 289]
“Skillful as the blacksmith…is, the finished product is dependent on the might of his arm. Yet people are expected to believe that what is only the product of human strength, indeed diminishing strength in regular need of outside sustenance, will suddenly become a thing of supernatural, self-sustaining strength!… The finished product has nothing to draw on conceptually except the maker’s notion of the highest he knows: of man in all his glory/’according to human beauty’.” [Motyer, p. 347]
“The forest is growing stuff to make gods with out of ash, and oak, and cedar, and cypress.” [Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XLI, (1895), p. 430]
“…It does not matter what sort of tree it is!” [Motyer, p. 348]
“Nay, in some cases the future deity has been actually planted by his worshiper, and nourished by the rain from heaven!” [Cambridge Bible in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 289]
“Man is such a fool that he neglects to serve the God who made him, and serves gods of his own making, though the fact that they are made proves that they are not as their name is, but gods (like the knowledge) falsely so called…” [Venning, The Plague of Plagues, [p. 55]
“Though the man planted the tree, yet he could not make it grow. In preparing to make an idol, he has to depend on the true God for rain from heaven (Jer. xiv.22).” [Fausset, p. 703]
“He cuts up part of the tree for fuel, and warms himself with it.” [Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XLI, (1895), p. 430]
“What the idolater actually does (14-17) is astonishing enough, but that he fails to see it as such (18-20) is doubly astonishing. Such a failure of human reason can only be explained by a deception of heart.” [Motyer, p. 348]
“‘He,’ God, hath given them over to judicial blindness… ‘Shut’ ― lit., daubed, plastered up. It is an Eastern custom, in some cases, to seal up the eyes of offenders.” [Fausset, p. 703-704] Cf. Isaiah 6:9-10; 2 Thessalonians 2:11
“…The heart and will first go astray, then the intellect and life (Rom. i.28; Eph. iv.18).” [Fausset, p. 704]
“He feedeth on ashes.… There is an allusion, perhaps…to the god being made of a tree, the half of which was reduced to ashes by fire (vv. 15, 16, 17); the idol, it is implied, was no better, and could, and ought, to have been reduced to ashes like the other half.” [Fausset, p. 704] Cf. Proverbs 15:14; Hosea 12:1
“…This passage….is a penetrating analysis of the human need for the divine and an exposure of every man-made device (e.g. both the idol of old and today’s military, economic and market forces) to make life secure. In our generation we would nominate different ‘craftsmen’ from those of verses 12-13 and different constructs from those in verses 14-17 but the absurdity of devotion to the man-made remains.” [Motyer, p. 346]
“‘There is no Rock’…is a symbol of refuge (cf. Pss. 71:3; 95:1), trustworthiness, changeless integrity (26:4) and reality as opposed to fantasy (Dt. 32:31). The Lord who brought Israel to birth (Dt. 32:4), the Redeemer and ruler (Ps. 19:14-15) is active in salvation (Ex. 17:6; Ps. 95:1). The character of God is the ultimate assurance of his people.” [Motyer, p. 345]
“Apart from the Lord there is no God and no Rock (nothing reliable to rest on, nothing active in salvation…” [Motyer, p. 343]
(B) The free grace of the Lord (44:21-47:15)
- Shown in pardoning Israel (44:21-23)
“We now return to the positive and joyous revelation of the true God…. The Lord’s repeated claim to control and predict the course of history is now dramatically renewed by the specific promises of vs 26-28. The veiled predictions of good news for Jerusalem and of a liberator in 42:2 and 25-29 are suddenly unveiled to reveal Cyrus and his edict of rebuilding, a prophecy which duly came to pass (cf. Ezr. 1:1-4).” [Kidner, p. 659]
“These wooden gods have done nothing of the sort. Come back to the true God, and worship him, and be happy in his love.” [Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XL, (1894), p. 516]
“As speedily as the wind sweeps away the thick clouds, so do I drive away thy transgressions.” [Wordsworth in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 290]
Note that while feelings of guilt drive one from God, the promises of pardon draw one to God!
- Shown in using Cyrus (44:24-45:25)
“Isaiah has diagnosed a double need in the Lord’s people, national bondage (42:18-43:21) and spiritual sinfulness (43:22-44:23). He now turns to say how these needs will be met. The anonymous emissary of 43:14 is named as Cyrus (44:28; 45:1), and the polemic of the Lord against the idols is brought to a climax in their unceremonious evacuation of the doomed Babylon (46:1-2). There is, however, another stream of thought throughout this section. The Lord’s plan to use Cyrus is greeted with hostility (45:9-13), and the spirit of the people hardens until they can be called ‘rebels’ (46:8), ‘stubborn hearted’ and ‘far from righteousness’ (46:12). Chapter 48, the very chapter which announces their liberation, is a storm-center of denunciation, accusing them of being without title to the name of Israel (verse 1), stubborn (verse 4), idol-loving (verse 5), opinionated (verse 7) treacherous (verse 8) and having forfeited peace (verse 18). Thus, when they leave Babylon they do so with the Lord’s sad comment that ‘there is no peace for the wicked’ (48:22). In a word liberation solves only one problem, but in the meantime the need for a solution to the deeper problem of sin has become ever more urgent. So Cyrus enters and leaves the stage of history. His task, the lesser solution, is done; the greater task awaits the greater servant.” [Motyer, p. 325-353]
(A) God’s Choice (44:24-45:1-8)
“Yahweh is the Redeemer and has the power to renew his people…. The power of Yahweh in creation, renewal, and redemption stands in stark contrast to the impotence of the practitioners of magic and divination…. In spite of all the Babylonian claims to wisdom and magical powers, he will raise up Cyrus the Persian to initiate a new stage in the history of redemption….which will culminate in the new heavens and earth and in the New Jerusalem.” [VanGemeren, p. 502]
“The prophet Isaiah, writing about 700 B.C., predicts Cyrus by name as the king who will say to Jerusalem that it shall be built and that the temple foundation shall be laid. At the time of Isaiah’s writing, the city of Jerusalem was fully built and the entire temple was standing. Not until more than 100 years later would the city and the temple be destroyed by King Nebuchadnezzar in 586 AB. C. After Jerusalem was taken by the Babylonians, it was conquered by the Persians in about 349 B.C. Shortly after that, a Persian king named Cyrus gave the decree to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. This was around 160 years after the prophecy of Isaiah! Thus Isaiah predicted that a man named Cyrus, who would not be born for about 100 years, would give the command to rebuild the temple which was still standing in Isaiah’s day and would not be destroyed for more than 100 years. This prophecy is truly amazing and is not isolated.” [Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, Answers to Tough Questions, (San Bernardino, CA: Here’s Life Publishers, 1980), p. 35]
“…The naming of Cyrus a century-and-a-half before his time (44:28, 45:1), is not unparalleled (see the predicting of Josiah, at twice this interval, in 1 Ki. 13:2). …The power to predict is precisely the proof paraded here that Yahweh alone is God (cf. 41:21-23, 26-29; 44:7-8, 25-28; 46:10-11; 48:3-8. Note that 48:8 blames Israel’s deafness, not God’s silence, for her ignorance of the new things that were to happen at the end of the exile).” [Kidner, p. 631]
(I) The Rebuilder of Zion (44:24-28)
(II) The Irresistible Conqueror (45:1-8)
“These verses put the Lord’s control of Cyrus in the setting of his total sovereignty (7), his worldwide self-revelation (6) and his will to vindicate the right (8).” [Kidner, p. 659]
“The term anointed….stresses that Cyrus is appointed and equipped for a supreme task to which all his victories will be the prelude…. The act that was the point and climax of his career, the release of Israel (cf. v 13), was doubtless a minor episode to Cyrus, so faulty are human valuations (cf. 55:8). His acknowledgement of Yahweh (cf. Ezr 1:2-4), as of other deities, seems to have been superficial (see on 41:25); a recognition of his existence and influence (3) without a corresponding personal knowledge (4).” {Kidner, p. 659]
“Through the evidence of prediction and fulfillment it was possible for Cyrus to come to know the true God, and this is all the words intend. They do not say that Cyrus will do so but that his career has been so managed in the hand of God that this has been made possible.” [Motyer, p. 358]
“light…darkness, the assertion of the Divine unity as opposed to the dualistic notions of the Persians, who believed in two beings ― Ormuzd, light; Ahriman, darkness.” [Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 293]
“The Hebrew word rà has a wide range of meanings, much like the English word ‘bad.’ Like ‘bad’ it can refer to moral evil (‘Hitler was a bad man’) or to misfortune (‘I’m having a bad day’) or merely to that which does not conform to some potential, real or imagined (‘That’s a bad road’). This is not the case with the common English equivalent for rà, ‘evil,’ which almost always refers to moral wickedness. Thus if we read ‘I…create evil’ (AV), we conclude that God causes people to make morally evil decision. That this is not the correct translation of rà in this circumstance is shown by the opposite term used, which is šālôm, ‘health, well-being, peace, good relations, good fortune.” [John Oswalt, “The Book of Isaiah,” The New International Commentary on the Old Testament II, (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company 1998), p. 204],
(B) Israel’s Complaint (45:9-25)
“The focus turns from Cyrus to a rather querulous Israel…with a classic rebuke to the suspicion that God is fumbling his work (cf. 29:16)…. The object lesson from the starry skies has been similarly, if more gently, used in 40:26-31.” [Kidner, p. 659]
“What can the Lord be thinking of by destroying our hopes? How can he ever bring it off by using a conqueror to liberate? For by using a Gentile conqueror to liberate Israel it was not only the pride of the nation that was threatened but the Lord’s promises…. The times of the Gentiles would continue in Jerusalem. There would be no sovereign state, no Davidic revival! The Cyrus-plan was the death-knell to all such hopes.” [Motyer, p. 361]
“The reply to their remonstrations was sharp: in a word, ‘It’s none of your business.’ The potter cannot, and the parent must not, be questioned; within their own spheres they possess total sovereignty (verses 9-11). So it is with the Lord. Neither as Creator nor as ruler of history (verses 12-13) is he available for questioning. He is sovereign and there the matter ends.” [Motyer, p. 361]
“The irony of verse 11 (paraphrasing: ‘Please feel free to give me your orders’) is crowned by the reference here to the Creator ― as if the Lord were to say, ‘After all, I am only the Creator!’” [Motyer, p. 362]
“In gentle rebuke of Israel’s amazement at a God who ‘hides himself’…(15), the Lord insists that he never spoke in secret (…’under cover’) so that his word was not openly available, nor in a land of darkness where it is easy to miss the way, i.e. his word is a plain word and not intrinsically puzzling. It is certainly not misleading, nor does it deal in deceitful commands or promises where people would follow them and end up in a maze of ‘meaninglessness’ (tōhû, ‘vain’). The Lord’s word is not shifting sand but solid ground.” [Motyer, p. 364-365]
“‘Woe to him that striveth with his Maker!’ Pharaoh did it, and was overthrown in the Red Sea; Saul did it, and was deposed; Jehoiakim did it, and he perished; Judas did it, and he hanged himself; the Pharisees did it, and their city was destroyed; Julian the Apostate did it, and falling back upon the field of battle, said, ‘Thou has conquered, O Galilean!’” [F, B, Meyer in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 294]
iii. Shown in judging Babylon (46:1-47:15)
“The fall of Babylon is first portrayed by the carrying off of her gods… The exile of Babylon’s gods is symbolic of Gods intervention on behalf of Israel. The inability of Babylon’s gods to save her stands in stark contrast to the power of Yahweh….
“Bel is the title given to Marduk, god of the capital city of Babylon. His title is related to the Hebrew word Baal (‘Lord,’ ‘Master’). The god of the city of Borsippa was Nebo, Marduk’s son, to whom wisdom and learning belonged. The political power represented by Bel and the wisdom represented by Nebo will be unable to deliver the idols of Babylon, much less the people…. The Babylonian gods are incapable of hearing or delivering those who depend upon them. Not so with Yahweh, who answers his people when they call on him in their distress….
“Though stubborn Israel does not deserve it, God’s salvation is very near. The future of God’s people is based on God’s full and free salvation.” [VanGemeren, p. 503]
“Bel (‘lord’; cf. Baal) was a title transferred from the old god Enil to Babylon’s patron deity, Marduk, whose son Nebo (Nabu) was the god of learning. Their names appear in e.g. Belshazzar, Nebuchadnezzar…. The contrast between these burdens, with their demands on money and muscles (6-7), and the lifelong burden-bearer, Yahweh (3-4), brings the series of attacks on idolatry in these chapters to a telling climax. The theme of prediction, a constant ingredient of these passages (cf. e.g. 42;23), receives its classic statement in v 10a; and the twin realities of the conqueror’s career ― as both predatory and predestined ― are set side by side in 11a (cf. 41:2, 25; 44:28; 45:1-7).” [Kidner, p. 660]
(A) Babylon will be judged for her idolatry (46:1-13)
(I) The burdening gods (46:1-2)
(II) The burden-bearing God (46:3-4)
“In contrast to what precedes: Babylon’s idols, so far from bearing its people safely, are themselves borne off, a burden to the laden beast; but Jehovah bears His people in safety even from the womb to old age (ch. lxiii.9; Deut. xxxii.11; Ps. lxxi. 6, 18). Contrast Moses’ language Num. xi.12” [Fausset, p. 710]
(III) The made gods (46:5-7)
(IV) The making God (45:8-11)
(V) The Saving God (45:12-13)
(B) Babylon will be judged for her pride (47:1-3)
(C) Babylon will be judged for her inhumanity (47:4-7)
“Yahweh, in judging his people, delivered them over to Babylon, who, by treating them with heartlessness and cruelty, placed herself under Yahweh’s judgment…. You may inflict God’s judgment and in so doing incur God’s judgment.” [Dale Ralph Davis, The Wisdom and the Folly: An Exposition of the Book of First Kings, (Ross-shire, Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications, 2002), p. 185]
(D) Babylon will be judged for living in pleasure (47:8-9)
(E) Babylon will be judged for looking to the occult (47:10-15)
“Although the Babylonians had used all kinds of magic spells to secure their future, sudden disaster will overtake them. Though Babylon had used her wisdom to plot military strategies and avert political economic disasters, she could not match the wisdom and power of God. A disaster had been planned and there is no way that Babylon can ward off the purposes and plan of God.”
[VanGemeren, p. 503]
