Dear Friends,
Today’s devotional consists of study notes on Isaiah 48-51 which includes two of the famous “Servant Songs” of Isaiah which speak of Christ. I recommend that you read through the Bible passage a chapter at a time reading the notes on that chapter after you read the Bible and looking back and forth. These chapter will richly repay you for your time. God bless you.
Because of Calvary,
John Janney

Adult SS Elective: Isaiah 48:1-51:23     
October 30, 2016

1. Grounded in the faithfulness of God (48:1-22)
2. Israel’s faithlessness (48:1-11)

“The shift of attention from Babylon back to Israel is far from flattering. Their glib talk of the LORD and the holy city (1-2) accords ill with their persistent idolatry (5); they emerge as hardened hypocrites (1, 4, 8). It is a darker picture than that of the faithlessness of 40:27 and even the coldness of 43:22, although it was anticipated in the sin against the light implied in 42:18-20. The argument from prophecy hitherto directed against the heathen (cf. e.g. 41:21-24), now has to be turned against God’s own people, these determined skeptics (3-8).” [Kidner, p. 660]

“They profess to trust him, but they do not love him; ‘they call themselves of the holy city,’ but they certainly are not holy citizens. Ah me that God should have to speak to men upon such a matter as this! It is self-evidently wicked, but they will not see it.” [Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XL, (1894), p. 455]

“There always were false professors, and I suppose there always will be till Christ comes. A Judas was among the twelve apostles, and we cannot wonder that we find such in every church, but what a dreadful thing it is to wear the name of God, and yet not really to serve him, to be called Christians, and yet not to be like Christ! It must be a very God-provoking thing to be called by his name, and then insult it by not being true to it.” [Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XL, (1894), p. 455]

“Many of the wonderful things of old Jehovah predicted long before they happened, and so left His stubborn people no excuse for an idolatry to which otherwise they would have given themselves… Now that they that wonderful past complete, and all the predictions fulfilled, they may well publish Jehovah’s renown to the world.” [George Adam Smith, p. 782]

“The things which the Prophet prophesied concerning Babylon and Cyrus could not, by any possibility, have been anticipated by human sagacity.” [Henderson in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 304]

“There is no better proof that God is God than that his prophesies have been fulfilled. Only the eternal can see into the future. He has done so, and every word of his either has been fulfilled, or will yet be fulfilled.” [Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XL, (1894), p. 455]

“Stubborn…means ‘brusque’ (1 Sa. 20:10) or ‘cantankerous’ (1 Sa. 25:3), i.e. temperamentally difficult. The neck of iron is one incapable of bowing in submission, indicating self-assurance; a forehead of bronze indicates an opinionated person with a set mind.” [Motyer, p. 377]

“The proper attitude before God is one of openness, humility, and self-distrust. The renewed soul is delicately sensitive to every expression of the Divine will, and to everything that is in harmony with the Divine mind. And the maintaining of that sensitiveness is absolutely essential to the keeping of right relations with God. Piety is closely akin to meekness and gentleness. It loves to obey, to follow, to be led. We have no will but God’s will for us. To lose this ‘sensibility’ is grave danger. It is to step on a slippery slide. Therefore should we ‘keep our heart with all diligence,’ and be most jealous over those various influences that help to make our hearts most tender.” [Pulpit Commentary in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 303]

“Israel does not have the knowledge claimed (8a) nor has it ever possessed an open ear to divine truth (8b). The pretence of knowledge is evidence of treacherousness (8c) and the closed ear evidence of an innately (from birth) rebellious nature (8d). What then? Will the just judgment fall?… No, for there is another factor in the situation. For reasons within his own nature (for my name’s sake, 9a) wrath is restrained, chastisement is within bounds (10a), the divine choice is still in force (10b) for in the Lord’s heart (for my own sake, 11a) is a commitment to his own reputation (11:bc).” [Motyer, p. 378]

1. Jehovah’s faithfulness (48:12-22)

“All this, however, serves only to reveal God’s patience for what it is: unmerited (9), constructive (10…) and resolute (11). After all his outspokenness he can still affirm both his call (12) and his love…and give the liberating command, Leave Babylon (20)…. Yet this is no rhapsody; the high price of self-will is stated and re-stated, as nothing less than a farewell to peace (18, 22), i.e. to all health of soul and society. The sad realism of v 22 will reappear at 57:21, and the book will end on the still harsher note of 66:24).” [Kidner, p. 660]

“The refiner of silver may lose some grains of the good ore in the smelting, but I will not lose a single grain of thee in the spiritual process of refining them by the furnace of affliction at Babylon.” [Wordsworth in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 304]

“The late Professor George Wilson thus quaintly expresses the various effects of affliction in a letter to his friend, Daniel Macmillan: ‘The furnace of affliction puffs away some men in black smoke, and hardens others into useless slags, and melts a few into clear glass. May it refine us into gold seven times purified, ready to be fashioned into vessels for the Master’s use.’” [Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 304]

“It is a great help when passing through the fire to know that we are there because there is gold to be extracted or silver to be refined as well as dross to purge away.” [El Nathan in Moody, One Thousand and One Thoughts from My Library, p. 137]

“I purged you, nothing came of it, testing you in the furnace, all in vain.” [Moffatt]

“‘The real tragedy of the world,’ writes Dr. Luccock, it not pain; it is sterile pain. It is pain that has no fruit, no redeeming outcome.’” [The Speaker’s Bible V, p. 86]

“Their unfaithfulness does not nullify the faithfulness of God.” [Motyer, p. 380]

“I am the Lord thy God which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go. O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments!

“God again breaks out in lamentations over his wandering people! Not only is he ready to forgive them; but he grieves to think that they should have brought so much sorrow on themselves.” [Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XL, (1894), p. 456]

“Jehovah laments that Israel had forfeited its heritage, had used its freedom to disobey, had cut itself off from his gracious design… What God would gladly have bestowed, the foolish nation had resolved to refuse.” [Pulpit Commentary in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 306]

“Obedience (18a) would have issued in peace (cf. 9:6…), perpetual as a river…” [Motyer, p. 382]

“It is easy to understand the impression made in the mind of a native of Palestine, accustomed to ‘deceitful brooks’ that run dry in the summer, by the sight of a great river, flowing on forever in undiminished volume. The actual history of Israel had been like the wadis of Judea, transient gleams of prosperity being interrupted by long intervals of misfortune; the river suggests to the writer an image of the boundless and unfailing blessedness which would have followed the keeping of the Divine commandments.” [Cambridge Bible in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 306]

“The admission of commitment to God resembles getting on an airplane. Once you are on board, you don’t worry about the directions, for they are the pilot’s job. Your responsibility is to get on the right airplane and, where necessary, to change planes. The pilot must do the guiding and the pilot is the Holy Spirit.” [Corrie ten Boom, Each New Day, (Grand Rapids: Fleming H. Revell, 1977), p.104]

“This verse [16] ends with a startling change of speaker: no longer the Lord, as in vs. 15-16a, but one sent by him, as the Spirit is also sent…. It is a remarkable glimpse, from afar, of the Trinity.” [Kidner, p. 660]

“flee ye, as at the Exodus. Singing, as when you reached the further shores of the Red Sea.” [Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 307]

“Exodus imagery continues. The Lord does not bring his people out in order to abandon them but undertakes full after-care. Exodus 17:1-7 in particular, is recalled with its tension between a grumbling, unbelieving people and a merciful, provident God.” [Motyer, p. 382]

“A change of scene does not bring a change of heart. Leaving Babylon, the people do not escape from their own character…. To come home to Canaan is not to come back to God.” [Motyer, p. 382]

“…As they come to the end of the captivity the problem of liberation is solved through the divine redemptive action, but the problem of sin remains…. The unresolved problem prepares the way for the Servant to step back onto the stage (49:1-6) to announce that his work includes bringing Israel back to the Lord (49:6).” [Motyer, p. 381]

1. Messiah (49:1-57:21)
2. His task (49:1-13)

“The very same person who was introduced by Jehovah in ch. 42:1ff. here speaks for himself…” [Delitzsch, p. 468]

“The depiction of the Servant here concurs with the first Song (42:1-4). In each case a spiritual need cries out for remedy and the Servant is described (biographically in 42:1-4, autobiographically here) as a Spirit-endowed agent of divine revelation for whose teaching earth waits (42:1, 4) and as one whose mouth the Lord has prepared (49:2), whereby he calls the whole world to hear (49:1)…. The same Servant who was there given a world ministry now has a double task. He is sent to Israel as well ― indeed,, to Israel first. The intervening chapters, and the climactic chapter 48, have brought Israel’s plight to the fore so that this is not the priority task…. The first Song was a word from the Lord to the world about his Servant: ‘Your plight is known, my Servant will deal with it’; but the second Song is the Servant’s testimony how that worldwide task devolved upon on who was already commissioned to minister to Israel…. Furthermore, the Servant claims to be ‘Israel’ (3) and to be in his own person the Lord’s covenant (8) and salvation (6) ― not to be the preacher or even the effectuator of these things, but to be them in himself.” [Motyer, p. 384]

Note “the Servant’s clear conscience. Here he shows no contrition for the sins deplored in 48:1-6, or the blindness of 42:18-20; only a sense of being trained for God’s moment (1-3; cf. 48:16). The unresponsiveness of Israel is something he has done battle with, not shared (4), and although he is addressed as ‘Israel’ (3) his mission field is itself ‘Israel’ (5) before it is the world (6).

“The paradox of an Israel sent to Israel is part of the powerful thrust of the OT towards the NT, since not even the ‘remnant’ of true Israelites (Rom. 9:6, 27) can fulfill the boundless expectations of vs 1-13. We are driven to seek a more perfect embodiment of God’s light, salvation (6) and covenant (8) in Christ as the head of his church, ‘the Israel of God’ (Acts 13:47; Gal. 6:16). Also the theme of conquest through service, broached in 42:1-4, has begun to sound the note of suffering and rejection (4, 7), which will increase in sharpness and significance in the third and fourth ‘Songs’.” [Kidner, p. 661]

“Messiah as the ideal Israel (v. 3), states the object of His mission, His want of success for a time, yet His certainty of ultimate success.” [Fausset, p. 717]

1. Scope (49:1-3)

“Listen is a common prophetic summons, marking the Servant as a prophet. To me is not used by any prophet other than Isaiah, and Isaiah it is used only of the Lord (46:3; 48:12; 51:1, 7; 55:2). How can the Servant address the world as only the Lord would address them (cf. 41:1)? Is there an as yet undisclosed relationship between the Servant and the Lord which makes this possible?” [Motyer, p. 385]

“They are to hear what he says, not merely what he says in the words that follow, but what he says generally. What follows is rather a vindication of his right to demand a hearing and obedience, then the discourse itself, which is to be received with the obedience of faith…” [Delitzsch, p. 469]

“Israel was the name of an individual before it became a national name. At Bethel (Gn. 28:13f.; 35:9-14) Jacob received the name and with it the blessing and responsibility of the Abrahamic promises…. The giving of the name to the Servant here ‘surely reflects the prophet’s discovery that Israel in exile is not really capable at that moment of living up to what it means to be Israel’ [J. Goldingay, God’s Prophet, God’s Servant (Paternoster Press, 1984), p. 128]. The moment of discovery was 48:1-2 and the discovery itself was somewhat more that Israel’s incapacity to live up to an ideal, rather the forfeiture of all right to the name. In consequence, either the Lord must acquiesce in the failure of his plans and promises or else he must find a true and worthy Israel. The Servant is this wondrous new beginning.” [Motyer, p. 386]

1. Difficulty (49:4)

“labored…naught, descriptive of the apparent results of Messiah’s mission.” [Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 308] Cf. John 1:11; 7:5

“This….seems to point at the obstinacy of the Jews, among whom Christ went in person preaching the gospel of the kingdom, labored and spent his strength, and yet the rulers and the body of the nation rejected him and his doctrine; so very few were brought in, when on would think none should have stood out, that he might well say, ‘I have labored in vain, preached so many sermons, wrought so many miracles, in vain.’” [Matthew Henry’s Commentary IV, p. 216]

1. Commission (49:5)

“Beginning to record what the Lord said (5a), the Servant finds himself suddenly reminded of his own preparation (5b), what he was prepared for (5cd) and his consequent dignity and strength in God (5ef). Thus, if the Servant’s antidote to despondency was resting faith (4cd), the Lord’s antidote is to speak his word (5a). The primary effect of the word, however, is to bring God into the situation so that what would by itself cause despondency is set in a new contest. The Servant is reminded that God has fashioned him for this very thing. Even his conception (in the womb) was timed and aimed in relation to the work he would do…. The task which seems to have defeated him is in fact that very thing the Lord has prepared him for; to bring Jacob back to him, the spiritual restoration of the people.… Despondency arises through listening to ourselves and our self-assessment etc., instead of looking to God recalling his purposes, living according to our dignity in him and rediscovering in him our source of power.” [Motyer, p. 387]

1. Mission (49:6)

“It is difficult to see how Jacob can bring back Jacob.” [Motyer, p. 388]

“What a blessed word of cheer this is for us poor Gentiles! The favored children of Israel thought us to be little better than dogs; and, behold, we have been lifted up into the children’s place. If Israel be not gathered, the Messiah hath become a light to the Gentiles, and God’s salvation unto the ends of the earth. Yet we cannot help fervently praying, ‘Oh, that Israel might soon be gathered to Christ!’ Her ingathering will be the time of the fullness of the Gentiles.” [Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XLI, (1895), p. 47]

“man despiseth, the first condition of this servant will be that he will be looked upon with contempt, he will arouse the abhorrence of the people…” [Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 309]

“He does not explain this, however, any more than he explains the sudden transformation in lines ef, where rulers now rise up to greet a superior and bow down in acknowledgement of his status…. The despised Servant becomes the acknowledged Servant, with the only explanation that throughout the Lord has been faithful, has maintained his holiness and never gone back on his choice (gh).” [Motyer, p. 390]

1. Success (49:7-13)

“The phrase the time of my favor signifies the era of Yahweh’s gracious acceptance of his people… It denotes the era of proclamation of freedom. It marks the renewal of the covenant and the fulfillment of God’s promises….

“The prophet then bursts out in another hymn of praise.” [VanGemeren, p. 505]

1.  Worldwide effectiveness (49:7-9b)

“All our happiness results from the Son’s interest in the Father and the prevalency of his intercession, that he always heard him, and this makes the gospel time an acceptable time, welcome to us, because we are accepted of God, both reconciled and recommended to him, that God hears the Redeemer for us, Heb. 7:25.” [Matthew Henry’s Commentary IV, p. 217]

1. Worldwide gathering (49:9c-12)

“Come forth from the darkness of your prison into the light of the Sun of righteousness, in order that others may be attracted to walk in the light of the Lord.” [Fausset, p. 718]

“Between Egyptian bondage and the enjoyment of Canaan lay a wilderness journey in which the people experienced the care of God. So in the pilgrimage of the heart back to God there is: (i) Provision (9cd)…. (ii) Protection (10ab)…. The idea of protection from disappointment is a telling additional thought. (iii) Guardianship (10cd).” [Motyer, p. 391]

“Messiah will abundantly satisfy all the wants both of literal Israel on their way to Palestine, and of the spiritual on their way to heaven…” [Fausset, p. 718]

iii. Worldwide joy (49:13)

“In the Servant, salvation, covenant blessings and light have extended to the whole world (6); a worldwide people has taken to the pilgrim route home. This is the song of the ‘world church.’” [Motyer, p. 391]

2. His reception (49:14-50:3)

“…The complaining voice of Zion contrasts sharply with the world song over the work of the Servant…. The actual charge of unresponsiveness comes in 50:1-3, where it stands in counterpoint to the responsiveness of the single, testifying voice (50:4-9) of the Servant (50:10-11).  Up to that point the Lord heaps promise upon promise in an attempt to reassure the people and win their trust, but it is all to no avail.” [Motyer, p. 392-393]

1. The Lord who does not forget (49:14-21)

“The words of thoughtless despondency (14) are countered by direct rebuttal (15-16) and by a word of promise (17-18b). The antidote to despondency is first to direct the mind to God and secondly to rest in his word.” [Motyer, p. 393-394]

“God’s reply here is typical. First, she is not bereft, for he cannot forget her. Secondly, she has her best days before her, when her new family will overflow all her bounds (19-20). The NT applies such promises not to ‘the present Jerusalem’ but to ‘Jerusalem above’ (Gal 4:25-27; cf. Is. 54:1), i.e. the universal church in heaven and earth.” [Kidner, p. 661]

“A woman, whose honor it is to be of the tender sex as well as the fair one, cannot but have compassion for a child, which, being both harmless and helpless, is a proper object of compassion. A mother, especially, cannot but be concerned for her own child; for it is her own, a piece of herself, and very lately one with her. A nursing mother, most of all, cannot but be tender of her sucking child; her own breasts will soon put her in mind of it if she should forget it. But…it is possible that she may forget. A woman may perhaps be so unhappy as not to be able to remember her sucking child (she may be sick, and dying, and going to the land of forgetfulness), or she may be so unnatural as not to have compassion on the son of her womb, as those who, to conceal their shame, are the death of their children as soon as they are their life, Lam. 4:10; Deut. 28:57. But, says God, I will not forget thee.” [Matthew Henry’s Commentary IV, p. 219]

“Not merely will God not forget, He cannot forget. This is one of the strongest, if not the strongest expression of God’s love in the Old Testament.” [Young III, p. 285]

“The word See implies a gesture of spreading out palms incised with the self-inflicted (engraved, as on a rock or precious stone) wounds of Zion’s name. When the Servant’s sufferings are reviewed (50:6; 53:4ff.) his hands are not mentioned; that is reserved for a later date (Jn. 20:19-20).” [Motyer, p. 394]

“I, even I, am graven upon God’s hands! There upon His palms has He written my name, to remember me forever. Day by day He bears me in mind, and in the night He never forgets me.” [Wells, The Living Bible, p. 211]

“…She had supposed herself to be childless, and now utters her surprise to find her people so numerous.” Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 313]

“This prophecy was literally fulfilled in the immense population of Judea, between the return from captivity and the time of our Lord.” [Henderson in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 312]

1. The Lord who does triumph (49:22-26)

“The submission of the nations is necessary not in order to initiate a servile relationship but (as in 45:14-25) because those who would join the people of God must first submit to them (cf. 1 Cor. 14:25).” [Motyer, p. 395]

1. The Lord who does redeem (50:1-3)

“There is a double misgiving reflected here, over the power and the will of God to save. The former is answered by affirming God’s control of history (49:25-26) and of creation (50:2-3), and the latter by a comparison between his character and Israel’s (50:1) ― for there is no fickleness in him as there is in her, and no pressure on him from outside (my creditors). Her sins alone account for the breach (cf. 59:1-2); the Lord’s attitude is, by implication, that of Ho 3:1-3, where the erring wife is loved and brought home.” [Kidner, p.  661]

“Because of the great guilt of the people of God and their lack of responsiveness, Yahweh has justly exiled them… In the past he called them tenderly, but there was no response. He has the power to avert the exile, as seen in the plagues of Egypt, but he acts freely by deciding to let it happen. Yet even though he sent them away, he has not divorced or sold Israel to the creditors.” [VanGemeren, p. 505]

3. His suffering (50:4-9)

“The third Servant Song…is autobiographical like the second…. There is after all someone who listens (4b), learns the will of God (5a), does not rebel (5b; cf. verse 1g), obeys at cost (6) and rests all the while in confident faith in the Sovereign Lord (7-9). Zion is unheeding of the Lord’s call (2), the Servant is ever a listener (4cd); Zion is unconvinced about the Lord’s love (49:14) and power (49:22), the Servant is confident in the Lord’s help (7a, 9a) and nearness (8a); Zion suffers for iniquity and rebellion (1fg), the Servant suffers because obedient (5f); Zion is charged with offences (1fgt), the Servant knows no charge against him can be sustained at law (8-9).” [Motyer, p. 398]

“After the display of patient gentleness in the first ‘Song’ (42:1-9) and the acceptance of frustrating toil in the second (49:4, 7), here the Servant faces the active spite and fury of evil. It is only a step, the reader feels, to the cross…. The Servant has set himself to learn (4) and to give (6), as one dedicated in mind and body. …He is accepting the common course of training (cf. Heb. 5:8)… Morning by morning suggests a lifelong attentiveness to God’s unfolding will… The consequent authority and aptness of his words are those of the prophet par excellence.

“So his suffering, while still unexplained (until ch. 53), is already fruitful, as all suffering can be; 5 Godward, he makes it his offering of obedience; 6 Manward, a voluntary, costly gift, not a resented exaction… 7-9 Inwardly he uses his discredit and isolation to clarify his sole trust in God.” [Kidner, p. 661]

1. How the Lord prepared him for ministry (50:4-5)

“The Father did not speak in dreams or visions to the well-beloved Son; but continually every morning He spake to His opened ear, and declared what He was to say; and thus the Messiah was the wisdom of God speaking unto men face to face.” [Wordsworth in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 315]

The Servant “is the second and true Adam who, when the Lord God came and called (cf. Gn. 3:8) was responsive and unashamed. The tongue filled with the appropriate word for ministry is the product of the ear filled with the word of God.” [Motyer, p. 399]

“Nothing indicates a tongue befitting the disciples of God, so much as the gift of administering consolation; and such a gift is possessed by the speaker here.” [Delitzsch, p. 481-482]

“His calling is to save, not to destroy….  What was typified in Job (see ch. 30:10; 17:6) and prefigured typically and prophetically in the Psalms of David (see Ps. 22:7; 69:8), finds in him its perfect fulfillment.” [Delitzsch, p. 482]

1. How the Lord stands by him in adversity (50:6-9)
2. Suffering (50:6)

“Up to this point, only 49:7 has noted the Servant as sufferer. The distinctive feature of this Song is to elaborate the sufferings and to stress the obedience factor which provoked them.” [Motyer, p. 398]

“‘I gave’ implies the voluntary nature of His sufferings…” [Fausset, p. 722]

“The severity and barbarity of a Roman scourging has been brought out by Dr. C. Geikie, who says, ‘Jesus was now seized by some of the soldiers standing near, and, after being stripped to the waist, was bound in a stooping posture, his hands behind his back to a post, or low pillar, near the tribunal. He was there beaten till the soldiers chose to stop, with knots of rope or plaited leather thongs, armed at the ends with acorn-shaped drops of lead, or small sharp-pointed bones. In many cases, not only was the back of the person scourged cut open in all directions; even the eyes, the face, and the breast was torn and cut, and the teeth not seldom knocked out. The judge stood by, to stimulate the sinewy executioners by cries of “Give it to him!” but we may trust that Pilate, though his office required his presence, spared himself this crime. Under the fury of the countless stripes, the victims sometimes sank, amidst screams, convulsive leaps, and distortions, into a senseless heap; sometimes died on the spot; sometimes were taken away, an unrecognizable mass of bleeding flesh, to find deliverance in death, from the inflammation and fever, sickness and shame.’ Few New Testament readers duly appreciate the sufferings which Messiah endured in the judgment-hall. The cross so fills their vision that they fail to see how much he endured before the cross and its final strain and agony were reached.” [Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 315-316]

“Now let me go back a little, and read again the third verse: ‘I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.’ ‘I gave my back to the smiters, and my checks to them that plucked off the hair.’ It is the same divine Person, who musters the hosts of heaven till the very skies are blackened with the artillery of God, who here says, ‘I gave my back to the smiters, bowing down to the brutal Roman scourge, and my cheeks to then that plucked off the hair.’” [Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XXXIX, (1893), p. 562]

1. Succor (50:7-9)

“…Commitment for the future (6) rests on confidence in God for the future…. Out of this confidence of help come certainty of the outcome (‘therefore’ I will not be disgraced/’end in confusion’) and resolute determination (Therefore I have set my face like flint) to carry things through to success (I know I will not be put to shame;/’shame’ in verse 6).” [Motyer, p. 400]

4. His people (50:10-11)

“Thus far we have the words of the servant. The prophecy opened with words of Jehovah (vv. 1-3), and with such words it closes…” [Delitzsch, p. 483]

“The two verses seize on the word of faith just uttered, to make them the pivot of life or death for the hearer. 10 Commitment to God is clearly allegiance at the same time to his Servant.” [Kidner, p. 661]

“If people continue to insist on walking by their own light, the judgment of God will overtake them and there will be no escape.” [VanGemeren, p. 506]

“…Them that are under spiritual desertion…are exhorted…to ‘trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon their God;’ to cast the anchor of hope, as Paul and his company did in the shipwreck, Acts xxvii.20…”  [Trapp IV, p. 174]

5. His call (51:1-52:12)

“There is an easy progress from chapter 50 into chapter 51. 51:1 addresses those whose lives are characterized by pursuing righteousness and seeking the Lord; verse 7 reveals their minds (they ‘know righteousness’) and their hearts (they are indwelt by the Lord’s law). In other words, they are the believing remnant who expressed their reverence for the Lord by submitting their minds to, and modeling their lives on, the word of the Servant and following him in the way of faith (50:10).” [Motyer, p. 403]

“Faith…is nourished by the three messages introduced by Listen (1), Listen (4) and Hear (7). They confirm the call of 50:10 to an unflinching trust, by an appeal first to look back to Israel’s humble beginnings, to see what God can do with but one (1-2); then to look ahead to the promised consummation both in this world (4-5) and the next (6); finally to look at present humiliations against such a background (7-8). The thought of man’s mortality, in the light of God’s eternity, is echoed from the Servants words in 50:9.” [Kidner, p. 662]

1. The making of the promises (51:1-3)

“God’s words of comfort…are addressed to those who still fear the nations among whom they are dwelling. They believe but had not yet come to the point where their faith is a conquering faith. There are many lingering questions….

“The prophet encourages all who long for the fulfillment of God’s Word by pointing to God’s work in the past. He promised to multiply Abraham and Sarah’s descendants and to bless them (Gen. 17:2, 5-6) and so he did (51:1-2). Their solidarity with Abraham, as they come from the same ‘rock’ and ‘quarry’ (v. 1), should be comforting because God is the same and his promises do not change…. The Lord will restore the land and the people, so that the work of restoration points back to the garden of Eden.” [VanGemeren, p. 506]

“Their present state is unpromising, but let them look back upon the more unpromising nature of their origin.” [Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 317]

“When Isaac was born Abraham was as good as dead and Sarah, as far as childbearing was concerned, was actually dead. From this unpromising beginning the Lord produced the sons, nations and kings he had promised (Gn. 17:3-7). Hence the chosen illustration of an inanimate beginning in stone is very apt. Whatever potential may be there, it is not inherent life or any power of growth.” [Motyer, p. 403]

1. The extent of the promises (51:4-6)

“…Within the total people there are the true people, and to those is addressed the word of speedy and eternal salvation.” [Motyer, p. 405]

“The sequence is…from the Edenic removal of the divine curse to joy (3) and now to salvation…” [Motyer, p. 405]

“In God no change is possible; in men change is impossible to escape.” [A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy, (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), p. 50]

“The world’s inhabitants transitory, salvation eternal…” [Motyer, p. 404]

1. The certainty of the promises (51:7-16)
2. Problems (51:7-8)

“A Christian should not expect to go to heaven in a whole skin; it is a part of the nature of serpents and snakes in the grass to try, if they can, to bite at the heel of the child of God, even as that old serpent, the devil, bit at the heel of him who has broken the dragon’s head. ‘Fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings,’ for your Master suffered in the same fashion long ago.” [Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XLIII, (1897), p. 539]

1. Prayer (51:9-11)

“…To the human eye it seems as if the Lord has gone to sleep over his promises.” [Motyer, p. 409]

iii. Promise (51:12-16)

“The oppressed comforted. God himself (I, even I…) is the ground of comfort, both as Maker, in contrast to the transience of mere creatures, and as God of the covenant (15-16) (Your God…my people), who counts his call of Israel the crowning glory…” [Kidner, p. 662]

1. The issuing of the commands (51:17-52:12)

“Here begins a new section: ‘words of cheer to prostrate Zion;’ extending to lii.12.” [Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 320]

1. Wake up! (51:17-20)

“They had called on the Lord (9) as though he was asleep, but actually it was they who had slept while momentous things were happening.” [Motyer, p. 414]

1. Hear this! (51:21-52:6)

“The next three verses describe the end and removal of wrath. Therefore introduces the Lord’s conclusions arising from the situation of human helplessness (18), comfortlessness (19) and hopelessness (20) under his wrath.” [Motyer, p. 414]

“The wrath so well-deserved, the wrath so exactly apportioned, is the wrath which is gone…. removed once and for all, for (lit.) ‘you will not drink it ever again.’” [Motyer, p. 415]