Isra’el’s National Wickedness
58:1 to 59:21

In the days before the fall of Jerusalem (Ezeki’el 8; Jeremiah 52), Isra’el was full of sin. But more than anything, they were hypocrites, clinging to rituals of the letter of the Torah, yet being spiritually dead so they were separated from God by their sin. Like the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), she would have to come to the end of her rope to be willing to submit to God. Pride had kept her from doing so, and will keep her from doing so for a long time. It is pride that says: I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High (14:13b-14). It is the pride of self-sufficiency. It is the pride that says, “No thanks, God, I can handle it.” It is the pride from the pit of hell that spiritually blinds people and anesthetizes them to the truth that they need God. We all need to give up the steering wheel of our lives to Him.

Alcoholics have talked about a “moment of clarity” where they see themselves as they really are – drunks. The alibi system is stripped away. “Everybody is picking on me,” will not do anymore. It is then that they say, “I need to do something about this.” Isra’el will go through the same process at the end of the Great Tribulation. As the armies of the antichrist are closing in on those Jews at Bozrah, those who are still alive at the end of the Great Tribulation, her life flashes before her eyes and she has a “moment of spiritual clarity.” Those Jews will see themselves as they really are – sinners in need of a Savior (see the commentary on Revelation, to see link click Ev – The Basis of the Second Coming of Jesus Chrst). At that moment they will confess their national sin, and invite Jesus Christ to come back and save them. And so all Isra’el will be saved (see Kg – The Second Coming of Jesus Christ to Bozrah). At that time, she will go from groan to glory.

Rebuke for the Wicked and Promises for the Faithful (58:1 to 60:1-22)

A summary of the Suffering Servant’s First Coming, Second Coming
and the restoration of Isra’el (61:1-11)

Far Eschatological Prophecy (62:1 to 66:24)

That She Had Received from the LORD
Double for All Her Sin
58:1 to 66:24

The last of the three-fold message is that she had received from the LORD double for all her sin (58:1 to 66:24). The second point, that her sin had been pardoned, gives the reason for the first, that her hard service had been completed; because her sins had been pardoned, her hard service had been completed. Likewise, the third point gives the reason for the second. The reason she had received double for all her sins was so that her sins could be pardoned. So we have a progression in thought.

I Live in a High and Holy Place,
But Also with Those Who are Contrite
57: 14-21

I live in a high and holy place, but also with those who are contrite DIG: Who would be reading this prophecy? When would they be reading it? What road needed to be built up and prepared? What obstacles needed to be removed out of the way of God’s people? What does it mean to be lowly and contrite? What does the LORD promise here? In what sense does the prophet picture the people of Isra’el mourning? 

REFLECT: Are you lowly and contrite or high and lofty? What obstacles are hindering ADONAI’s work in your life? What areas of your spiritual highway are in need of repair? If the wicked are like the tossing sea, how would you picture those at peace with God? Which do you feel like? Why? What might you need to quiet things down? What word of peace (57:19) might Jesus speak to calm you?

In this near historical prophecy, Isaiah speaks to the nation of Judah and city of Jerusalem about one hundred years later during the ministry of Jeremiah. Through His prophet, God offers His forgiveness if only they would repent from their wickedness.

After rebuking the religious leaders of Jerusalem for only looking out for their own selfish interests (to see link click Jl – Israel’s Watchmen Are Blind, They All Lack Judgment), and accusing the citizens of Judah of spiritual adultery, (see Jm – You Have Made Your Bed on Every Hill, There You Went Up to Offer Sacrifices) ADONAI offers both groups mercy: Not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). Grace is getting what you don’t deserve, while mercy is not getting what you do deserve. Because of their wickedness both of those groups deserved judgment. Instead, God gives them hope (Titus 2:13).

The invitation to: Build up, build up, prepare a road (57:14a) for the people of faith points to that road spoken of by the forerunner earlier in Isaiah (see my commentary on The Life of Christ Be – John the Baptist Prepares the Way). He will be a voice of one calling in the desert. “Prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God (see Gm – The Highway of Holiness Will Be There). Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. And the Sh’khinah glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it! For the mouth of ADONAI has spoken (40:3-5).”

Whatever prevented them from coming to Him and taking refuge in Him had to be removed. God said: Remove the obstacles, every stumbling block, out of the way of My people (57:14b). The picture of a stumbling block is significant here because of its use earlier: And He will be a sanctuary; but for both houses of Israel He will be a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall. And for the people of Jerusalem He will be a trap and a snare (8:14). There ADONAI is the stumbling block to those who refuse to give Him a place in their lives. As a result, they stumble over Him instead of allowing Him to be the Sanctuary that He wants to be.

Here the context is similar to 8:14 above. God is the Holy One and there is a stumbling block in the people’s way. But the tone is different. There, Isaiah was commanded to leave this people to their stumbling ways (8:11), and seal up the testimony (8:16), while God hid His face from the house of Jacob (8:17). Here, the prophet is empowered to speak to My people, and to let them hear the command to remove every stumbling block in their way so ADONAI could stop hiding from them (57:17), and heal them (6:10). What could have made the difference between 8:14-17 and here? Because the Servant has been crushed (53:10), the LORD could sit in the dust with those who have been crushed (57:15). Those who would humble themselves and live with the Holy One would find a perfectly smooth road to salvation.

For this is what the high and lofty One says – He who lives forever, literally inhabiter of eternity. The word sakan (Exodus 25:8, 29:45) is used of ADONAI coming to dwell temporarily among His people in the Tabernacle. And just as at the exodus, when He gathered His people to Himself by redemption (see the commentary on Exodus Bz – Redemption) with the deliberate purpose of dwelling among them (Exodus 29:42-46), so now He purposes exactly the same but with forever in mind.

Whose name is Holy: I live in a high and holy place, but also the one who is contrite, literally crushed, and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of those crushed under life’s burdens (57:15). He is the God of eternity. Mankind, however, doesn’t last very long on this earth. The eternal God promises to take those who do not trust in themselves, but trust in Him, and He covers them as a mother hen covers her chicks (Matthew 23:37). What peace and security there is for those who belong to the LORD. Even though He is majestic, high and lofty, He fellowships with those who are contrite and lowly in spirit. ADONAI is very high, but He is not so high that He is removed from our struggles. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have One who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet without sin. Let us approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need (Hebrews 4:15-16).

What ADONAI was looking for then, and what He is looking for today is brokenness over sin. David wrote Psalm 34 when he pretended to be insane before Abimelech, who eventually drove him away (First Samuel 21:13): He is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit (Psalm 34:18). After committing adultery with Bathsheba, he also wrote: The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise (Psalm 51:17). But David repented saying: I have sinned against the LORD (2 Samuel 12:13), and therefore, reestablished his relationship with ADONAI (1 John 1:8-10).

How can God bridge the gap between our sin and His holiness? ADONAI must satisfy His own legal requirements and bring an end to His anger. This is accomplished by the suffering Servant of the LORD (53:1-12). The theological name for this is propitiation, which is the averting of God’s wrath by means of the substitutionary sacrifice of Yeshua Messiah. His shed blood satisfies every claim of God’s holiness and justice so that God is free to act on behalf of sinners (Rom 3:25; Heb 2:17; 1 John 2:2). I will not accuse forever, nor will I always be angry (57:16a). He is eternal, but His anger is not. If we repent, the LORD’s accusations and anger will not last forever because of His grace. As Jesus said: There will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent (Luke 15:7).

For then the one would faint away because of Me – the very people I have created (57:16b). Here ADONAI expresses His dilemma. On the one hand, if He could not find a way of abating His righteous anger, the humans that He had created would be forever separated from Him. But, on the other hand, how could He fail to punish sin and continue to be the just God of all creation (Genesis 18:17-19)? The answer to this puzzle continues to be the Suffering Servant (53:10-12). The only question is that tricky little matter of free will. Would those He created choose His sin offering, or go their own way?

In the past He had to be harsh with His people because of their sinful greed and independence. I was enraged by their sinful greed, or covetousness (see my commentary on Exodus Dt – You Shall Not Covet Anything That Belongs To Your Neighbor).  God said: I punished them, and hid My face in anger, yet they kept on in their willful ways (57:17). The sin being described is greed, which seemingly summed up all their sins. Covetousness is the proud, unrestrained motivation that wishes to make itself the center of the universe. It is not surprising, therefore, that the commandment not to covet is last. If you break the tenth commandment, do you not also break the first?

If only they would repent He would forgive them, giving healing, guidance and comfort. He said: I have seen their ways, but I will heal them; I will guide them and restore comfort to the mourners of Israel. The nation is pictured here as theoretically asking for forgiveness, being forgiven, and mourning, as it were, over her sins that are pictured as being dead and gone. As the prophet Micah said: You will again have compassion on us; You will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea (Micah 7:19).

The natural result of forgiveness is praise, and therefore, praise would be heard on the lips of the forgiven sinners (57:18-19a). God would heal the contrite and brokenhearted Israelites; He will comfort, guide and restore them back to a relationship with Him. If they would only turn from their wicked ways. He so desperately wanted to heal them and change from anger to loving concern.

The forgiven ones would enjoy peace. ADONAI would no longer be at enmity with His children. “Peace, peace to those far and near,” says the LORD. “And I will heal them” (57:19b). This peace would not be a matter of birthright, but a matter of choice. They could say no to God and make it stick. Comfort and restoration, however, will be the state of the righteous, the wicked will not be so fortunate.

But the wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud (57:20). The contrast between the righteous and the wicked is especially relevant from here to the end of the book were Isaiah focuses on balancing the ideas of salvation and vengeance (59:17, 61:2, 63,4-6). This is probably one of the most picturesque descriptions of the wicked in the Bible. Like the troubled and restless sea, the wicked can find no peace no matter how hard they try or no matter how much peace they pretend to have (Psalm 37 and 73). They are like a hunted criminal looking for deliverance and safety, but doomed for punishment because they refuse to turn to God.

There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked (57:21). Like gravity, this is an axiom of life. In contrast with the abundant peace promised to the righteous, unrest like that of a troubled sea with its mire and dirt is the lot of the wicked. Jesus’ parable is an excellent illustration of this fact (see the commentary on The Life of Christ Ii – The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector). There is no rest for the wicked in this life, and there will be no peace in the next life. Each of the three-fold messages (That Her Warfare Had Been Completed – 40:12 to 48:22; That Her Sin Had Been Pardoned – 49:1 to 57:21; and That She Had Received from the Lord Double for All Her Sin – 58:1 to 66:24) ends with one verse that describes the state of the wicked, and that is what we have here.

The first of the three-fold message was that her warfare had been completed. It was completed with the seventy years of Babylonian captivity (see the commentary on Jeremiah Gu – Seventy Years of Imperial Babylonian Rule). Babylon was conquered and the Jews were permitted to go back. God had demonstrated His absolute superiority over the idols by doing something never before done in human history, causing a conquered people, His people, to return from exile to their native Land. That section ended with the judgment of the evil ones: There is no peace, says the LORD, for the wicked (48:22).

The second of the three-fold message, which ends here, is that her sin had been pardoned. In this section, the reason that Isra’el’s sin was pardoned was because of the death of the Servant of the LORD. This section also ends with the condemnation of the wicked: There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked (57:21). And we will see the condemnation of the wicked again at the end of the last of the three-fold message in Chapter 66.

You Have Made Your Bed on Every Hill,
There You Went Up to Offer Sacrifices
57: 3-13

You have made your bed on every hill, there you went up to offer sacrifices DIG: How is the people’s idolatry like adultery? What is Isaiah’s point in using that image? Why has this happened? What is meant by the prophet’s harsh words in 57:9? What is syncretism? From these verses, why do you think the LORD permits divorce on the grounds of adultery? How will the fate of the idolaters contrast with the future of those who have taken refuge in God? How does this section show us that ADONAI is a promise keeper?

REFLECT: How are people still burning with lust and sacrificing their children today? How are they sending ambassadors far away? Why are they not worn out with their idolatry? What forms does idolatry take today? Has something ever taken the place of the LORD in your life? TV? Sports? Family? Spouse? Children? Job? Which have failed to help you when you really needed help? In reality, how do these very things end up separating us from the help ADONAI gives? How would you explain to someone what it means to take refuge in God? What pressures are driving you to take shelter in Christ right now?

In this near historical prophecy Isaiah condemns Jewish citizens living about one hundred years later during the ministry of Jeremiah. This is a scathing denunciation of the men who indulged in idolatrous rites and pagan practices. In this section, Isaiah expands on the self-righteousness of the nation that considers itself to be the elect of the LORD, a nation that sees righteousness as a matter of political correctness in their religious practices. In 57:3-10 through His prophet, ADONAI exposes the practice of idolatry. Finally, in 57:11-13, God addresses the foolishness of idolatry.

In contrast with the righteous, the vast majority of the nation was involved in idolatry. Because they had begun worshiping other gods, they were guilty of spiritual adultery. The concept of Isra’el being the wife of the LORD is rooted in Deuteronomy, which is written in the form of an ancient marriage contract (to see link click Je – The Restoration of the Wife of the LORD).

But you – come here, you sons of a sorceress, you offspring of adulterers and prostitutes (57:3). And as His wife, Isra’el was involved in religious prostitution (Hosea 4:14). In fertility religions “worshipers” engaged in sexual relations with prostitutes, supposedly identifying in that way with the gods and goddesses to help guarantee fertility in their crops, animals, and families.

Whom are you mocking? At whom do you sneer and stick out your tongue? They participated in a rising tide of rejection against ADONAI and His followers; starting with poking fun, leading to scornful sneers, which ended up in vulgar rejection. Are you not a brood of rebels, the offspring of liars (57:4). Such people in Isra’el were mocking the righteous while they were up to their eyebrows in sin. By such actions they were rebels against God.²³⁴ This was no accident. It was willful departure from the truth to the lie. Timothy said it this way: For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths (Second Timothy 4:3-4)

Isaiah now proceeds to describe two aspects of Canaanite religion that never ceased to horrify the prophets: fertility worship and child sacrifice. First, fertility worship, with its symbolic lush spreading tree and its sexual ritual, supposedly prompted the god to fertilize their land, their animals and their family. The exact reason for the association of a lush spreading tree with fertility worship is not known. But whatever the specific reasons were, the connection was clear (First Kings 14:23; Second Kings 16:4, 17:10; Isaiah 1:29; Jeremiah 2:20, 3:6 and 13; Ezeki’el 6:13, 20:28-29; Hosea 4:12-13). Their physical union with the loins of creation, rather than a spiritual relationship with the Creator, became the key to their imaginary power.

You burn with lust among the oaks and under every spreading tree (57:5a). In addition, worship centers were set up on high places so that the idolaters could imagine themselves even closer to their gods. Often these high places were in lush forest areas to picture the fertility being sought by the idolaters. Their spiritual adultery was so great that ADONAI said: You burn with lust, and would accuse them of making their bed on every high and lofty hill. They even sacrificed their children to the tree gods among the oaks (see below). Idol temples and altars were built, surrounded by thick groves and trees. There, under every spreading tree, offering sacrifices in gardens (65:3), excesses of the worst kind were committed. Therefore, God had to forbid the planting of trees near His altars, lest His people should become, or seem to be, like unbelievers.²³⁵

The second aspect of Canaanite worship was child sacrifice. You sacrifice your children in the ravines and under the overhanging crags (57:5b). ADONAI had told Moses to say: Any Israelite or any alien living in Isra’el who gives any of his children to Molech must be put to death. The people of the community are to stone him (Leviticus 20:2, also see Leviticus 18:21, 20:3-5; Jeremiah 49:1-3). Molech worship consisted of the ritualized sacrifice, or “passing through the fire” of the first-born infant son of every Ammonite family. Building a fire in the belly of the beast, getting it good and stoked, so that the flames poured out of the mouth, the high priest mounted a scaffold and tossed the first born male child into an opening in Molech’s chest or placed him in the statue’s outstretched arms (Jeremiah 7:31, 32:35). If a couple sacrificed their first-born son, they believed that Molech would ensure financial prosperity for the family and future children. In contrast to that, the Torah taught that the firstborn of Isra’el belonged to the LORD (see the commentary on Exodus Cd – Consecrate To Me Every Firstborn Male), but those idol worshipers gave their firstborn male to Molech instead! They treated their infant sons like cattle.

They even worshiped the smooth stones from the stream that once slew a giant (First Samuel 17:40). The idols among the smooth stones of the ravines are your portion (57:6a). And as if worshiping the tree gods wasn’t sufficient, they also worshiped the stone gods and expected God to look the other way. One of the rites of idol worshipers was the worship of stone pillars, water-worn and smoothed by the winter floods, upon which was poured or smeared the blood or oil of sacrificial offerings to the deity the stones represented. The worship of stone is referred to in Deuteronomy 7:5, 12:3 and in many passages where the word images is used. It is also very probable that the allusion to the rock in Deuteronomy 32:31 and 37 is a reference to the same practice of idolatry. The image of the goddess Artemis, which fell down from heaven and was worshiped by the Ephesians, may be another example (Acts 19:27and 35). The old custom was to anoint the stones, which were worshiped, and to present offerings to them. The worthless stones are contrasted with the greatness of God. ADONAI said to the Israelites, if you reject Me, then all you will get are some useless stones. They, they are your reward instead of a relationship with Me (57:6c).

Then God asked rhetorically: Yes, to the idols of stone you have poured out drink offerings and offered grain offerings. In the light of these things, should I relent (57:6b)? The answer expected is that no appeasement is possible. Such revolting worship demands not pacification but punishment. From the depths of the ravines to the height of the lofty hills, practice of spiritual adultery filled the whole Land. Returning to the imagery of prostitution, He said: You have made your bed on a high and lofty hill; there you went up to offer your sacrifices (57:7). They worshiped everything except the true and living God.

All of this resulted in spiritual adultery. Behind your doors and your doorposts you have put your pagan symbols. Forsaking Me, you uncovered your bed, you climbed into it and opened it wide; you made a pact with those whose beds you love, and you looked on their nakedness (57:8). Money aside, her heart was given to another. In Deuteronomy 6:9 Moses said that the commandments of the LORD were to be written on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. But now we see that they had put pagan symbols of other gods behind their doors and doorposts. They had forsaken God, and Isaiah uses the allusion of them climbing into bed and making a pact with those who they love to worship. It is no wonder that Jesus says: I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another women commits adultery (Matthew 19:9). ADONAI knows how much Israel’s actions hurt Him. He loved her so much, yet she kept committing spiritual adultery. God finally gave Isra’el her certificate of divorce in Jeremiah 3:8. I gave Isra’el her certificate of divorce and sent her away because of all her adulteries. God does not ask more of us than He does of Himself.

The metaphor of prostitution is expanded. You went to Molech, an Ammonite god, with olive oil and perfumes to attract her foreign lover. You sent ambassadors far away (57:9a). Judah had flirted with foreign powers to gain military alliances (Ezeki’el 23). But those political alliances always involved relations with foreign gods. Therefore, signing covenants with pagan nations was like signing her own death warrant. Figuratively, it was like she descended to the grave, or sh’ol, itself (57:9b)! When she was committing spiritual adultery with foreign gods, it was like she was killing herself. You can’t swim in the toilet, and come up smelling like a rose!

The constant quest for new gods with which to prostitute herself was exhausting. You were wearied by all your ways, but you would not say, “It is hopeless, I need to return to the LORD.” You found renewal of your strength, and so you did not faint in your pursuit of other lovers (57:10-11). We see that while the Israelites liked to worship many gods in general (Ezeki’el 8), they like to worship one god in particular, Molech the god of the Ammonites. As mentioned above, the worship of Molech required human sacrifice, specifically first-born baby boys. So the children of sacrifice were slaughtered. Even though the worshipers of Molech were very tired, they always found a second wind to continue their worship of him. So while they were committing spiritual adultery they never even thought about the One true God, who alone gave them life and strength.

Finally, God called the people to account. He starts out by asking them what could possibly have motivated them to be untrue to Him. Whom have you so dreaded and feared that you have been false to Me, and have neither remembered Me, nor pondered this in your hearts? Is it not because I have long been silent that you do not fear Me (57:11)? The Bible teaches that the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom (Psalm 111:10). Isra’el had feared wood and stone, but not the true God. And yet those gods of wood and stone had kept silent. But Isra’el’s God, whom they had ignored, continually spoke the truth. God’s apparent indifference to their way of life had ended. He was proceeding to pronounce judgment and would expose Isra’el’s lack of righteousness and works of adultery. Those who trusted in and had faith in, or believed in those little gods of wood and stone were left with nothing but the wind. There was nothing to stop them from chasing after their evil desires, since no fear of the LORD stood in their way. In short, they were fools.

So what would God do? I will expose your righteousness and your works, and they will not benefit you (57:12). Their alleged righteous works, when exposed, would be shown for what they really were, and as a result their counterfeit deeds would be of no help to them when they face Yeshua Messiah in judgment (see the commentary on Revelation Fo – The Great White Throne Judgment). The books will be opened and all their counterfeit righteousness will be exposed. ADONAI said sarcastically: When you cry out for help, let your collection of idols save you! The wind will carry them off (57:13a). They fooled themselves into believing that all their rituals and spells, their sexual escapades and child sacrifices were pleasing to the LORD. It is the same today. The out-and-out denial of God is rarely the problem. Most people say they believe in “God.” The problem is the prostitution of it. People rub shoulders with syncretism so much that in the end their “faith” ends up being worthless. They might have called it righteousness, but it was really abomination (66:3). There was so little spiritual substance to those Israelites living in Jerusalem during the days of Jeremiah that a mere breath blew them away (57:13b). They were spiritual shells with nothing inside . . . walking spiritual zombies.

But whoever takes refuge in Me will inherit the Land and possess My holy mountain (57:13c). In contrast to those who worshiped wood and stone were those who took refuge in the true God of Isra’el. Those who took refuge in Him will inherit the Promised Land, and possess ADONAI’s holy mountain (11:9). This is a hint of something that is spelled out in other prophets. The righteous of the TaNaKh will be resurrected after the Second Coming (see Fg – You Who Dwell in the Dust Will Wake Up and Shout for Joy), for the purpose of inheriting and possessing all of the Promised Land. ADONAI said to Abraham: To your descendants I give this Land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates – the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephates, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites (Genesis 15:18-19). He repeated this promise to Isaac and Jacob. Yet when all three died, the most they possessed of the Promised Land was a buried cave and several wells. So how would God fulfill His promises?

The only way ADONAI could fulfill His promises to them is to resurrect them from the dead and bring them to the Land, where they will possess all of the Promised Land. In addition, the prophets also clearly make the point that the righteous of the TaNaKh will also possess the Promised Land someday: For evil men will be cut off, but those who hope in the LORD will inherit the Land (Psalm 37:9).

Isra’el’s Watchmen Are Blind,
They All Lack Knowledge
56:9 to 57:2

Isra’el’s watchman are blind, they all lack knowledge DIG: What three figures of speech does Isaiah use to describe the leaders of Isra’el? What time period was Isaiah describing? How do we know? To whom was this prophecy addressed? In what ways are the leaders as useless as gluttons or sleeping watchdogs that can’t even bark? What are the primary concerns in these verses?

REFLECT: How can we check ourselves against spiritual blindness? How can you be taken away to be spared from an evil situation? How do you think you would react in a situation like this? Why? What is the most important life lesson you can take away from this study? How can you use it to help others?

Throughout most of this third major section in the second half of the book: Il – That Her Sin Had Been Pardoned from 49:1 to 57:21, the emphasis has been on the far eschatological prophecy of the righteous of the TaNaKh in the Messianic Kingdom. Now in 56:9 to 57:21, Isaiah prophesied about the spiritual condition of the nation about a hundred years in the future. We can be confident of our interpretation because the nation was not broken apart during the days of Isaiah, although undoubtedly corrupt. It was, however, during the ministry of Jeremiah, that the beasts came and Jerusalem fell (Jeremiah 52). It was then that the Israelites were taken into captivity and the book of Lamentations was written. In view of the wonderful future that Isaiah had already prophesied, one would expect the Israelites would want to obey ADONAI in anticipation of that glorious Kingdom. But, sadly, that was not the case. And if we look around us, we have the same problems today.

In this near historical prophecy Isaiah condemns the religious rulers of Jerusalem of about one hundred years later, during the ministry of Jeremiah. The leaders of Isra’el were not the LORD’s servants, they were working for themselves. They had failed the people and they had failed God. Therefore, they were to be condemned and removed by Babylon. In irony and bitterness the heart of the prophet invites the wild beasts of the field and the beasts of the forest to come and devour the defenseless sheep, because they were left unprotected by their shepherds. This is a scathing accusation against the slothful leaders of the people and is a standard motif elsewhere in the Bible (Jeremiah 12:9; Ezeki’el 34:8). Come, all you beasts of the field, come and devour, all you beasts of the forest (56:9)! The beasts in the plural refer to the Gentile nations. Just because ADONAI had selected her as His vineyard did not mean He would not break down its walls and call in the wild animals if they did not keep their covenant promises (to see link click Ba – The Song of the Vineyard). Grace is not to somehow condone overt, continuous sin and make it acceptable, but rather, to make it possible, after chastisement, to start over with a clean slate and the power to obey (Rom 6:1-23).

But here the LORD was permitting the Gentile nations to break down the walls of the vineyard, and like wild beasts, devour His people. Assyria had already broken in and Babylon was coming. Later, others would come and devour her. If you have ever seen pictures of the walls of Jerusalem and the Wailing Wall, you can see that they are built of stones from different time periods and civilizations. History tells us that Jerusalem has been destroyed at least twenty-seven times, and today is built upon its own debris. To reach the place where Yeshua walked, you would have to dig down thirty to fifty feet. Why did ADONAI allow the Gentile nations to devour the apple of His eye (Deuteronomy 32:10b)?

In his first figure of speech, Isaiah uses a watchman. The watchmen of Isra’el were the prophets, who were designated to see what was coming and prepare the people to meet the challenge (Isaiah 21:6, 52:8; Jeremiah 6:17; Ezeki’el 3:17; Habakkuk 2:1). If these “seers” were blind, however, the likelihood that the people would choose the right way and avoid sin was virtually non-existent. Unfortunately, that was the case during the ministry of Jeremiah. Isra’el’s watchmen were blind. They all lacked knowledge, they were all mute dogs who could not even bark; they lay around and dreamt, loving to sleep (56:10). From Isaiah we learn that Isra’el’s watchmen were guilty of a whole list of wrongdoings. It would almost be laughable if it were not so tragic.

First, they were blind (56:10a); they could not see the difference between good and evil. Unfortunately, it was the blind leading the blind, and not surprisingly, it ended terribly. The Psalmist wrote: I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against You (Psalm 119:11). The only way we can tell if we have a spiritual myopia is check ourselves against the Word of God. For all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness so that the person of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work (Second Timothy 3:16-17).

Secondly, they all lacked knowledge (56:10b). They lacked the necessary foresight and knowledge to lead, even though the well-being of the nation rested on their narrow shoulders. The LORD said through His prophet Hosea, “My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6a). The priests in particular had ignored their duty to communicate the Torah to the nation (Deut 31:9-13, 33:8-10; Malachi 2:7).

Thirdly, in his second figure of speech, Isaiah likened those counterfeit leaders to dogs. Rather than being barking dogs for protection, they are all mute dogs, because they would not bark (56:10c). In Isaiah’s day every shepherd had a dog to help him watch the sheep. The dog would lie down at night and keep one eye open. The second a dangerous animal or human being came to harm or to steal the sheep – the dog would bark. But the watchmen, the religious leaders who should have been warning ADONAI’s people, were ignoring it. Like mute dogs, they did not bark when danger was near. A silent watchdog is worthless.

Fourthly, rather then keeping a sharp eye on the flock, they laid around dreaming because they loved to sleep (56:10d). Instead of staying alert watching for the approaching enemy, those dogs were fast asleep, their legs twitching in their dreams, only waking up long enough to yawn and change positions. They didn’t love the people, or even their task. The real affection of their lives was for sleep. Because those religious leaders had allowed their sense of calling to become fuzzy, laziness had overtaken them and destroyed their ability to perform their calling.

Fifthly, not only were they lazy, but they were also greedy. That is a bad combination. They were dogs with mighty appetites; they never had enough (56:11a). The problem with them was not merely idleness and sloth; the problem was much more active than that. They were concerned with their own self-interests rather than the welfare of their flock. Ironically, they had forsaken the real purpose of their lives for self-gratification that they could never satisfy. Like a dog chasing its tail, they could never find the reward that they were so desperately looking for. It always seemed just out of their reach.

Sixth, in a third figure of speech they are compared to shepherds who lack understanding (56:11b). Solomon wrote: Folly delights a man who lacks judgment, but a man of understanding keeps a straight course (Proverbs 15:21). Good shepherds know the best grazing ground for their flocks. But these pseudo-leaders were self-absorbed and ignorant. They just didn’t get it.

Seventh, they all turned to their own way, each seeking his own gain (56:11c). They sought their own interests without caring for the welfare of the people. The cardinal sin of leadership is insatiable self-concern. The threefold imagery of the watchman, dogs and shepherds suggests that Isaiah’s prophecy was addressed not only to the prophets but, as other places in the book, to the heart of the Jewish leadership: the priests and the royalty. Each group, without exception, had chosen to put themselves before the interests of their God, their country and their people. If they only could have seen king Zedekiah taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar, forced to watch the execution of his own sons, then blinded, bound with shackles and taken to Babylon to die (Jeremiah 52:9-11), then maybe they would have chosen differently. But they were blind.

Eighth, then Isaiah offers a concrete illustration. Without an introduction of a speaker we simply hear the watchman speak. Then everything Isaiah had been saying became tangibly real. “Come,” each one cries, “let me get wine! Let us drink our fill of beer” (56:12a). They drowned their sad plight and condition in excessive drinking. The Bible doesn’t object to drinking wine (First Timothy 5:23), but it does condemn drunkenness. Wine is a mocker and beer a brawler; whoever is led astray by them is not wise (Proverbs 20:1).

Ninth, they were characterized by a false sense of security, saying tomorrow will be like today, or even far better (56:12b). If a little pleasure is good, then more is better, and much more is better still. They faced the future as drunkards and blind optimists, unable to see beyond the glass of alcohol in front of them. There are many people who are facing life like that today. What desire never tells us is that she can never be satisfied, and in the end, she ends up enslaving us. Sin always takes you further than you want to go, and costs you more than you wanted to pay.

In Matthew 23 Jesus accuses the Jewish leadership of not fulfilling their God given duties and pronounces seven woes against them. Jewish critics like to use that chapter to try to show that there is anti-Semitism in the New Covenant. If anyone ever does that to you, turn to Isaiah 56:10-12 and ask them if Isaiah was anti-Semitic also?

The disappearance of the righteous and godly was a result of the apathy of the nations’ supposed leaders. The righteous perish and no one takes it to heart (57:1a). As the wicked leaders continued their pursuit of pleasure, their flock was being devoured. They didn’t care; in fact, they didn’t even notice. Evil became so rampant in Jerusalem that during the ministry of Jeremiah there was a time when he was virtually unable to find one person who dealt honestly and sought the truth (Jeremiah 5:1-2). There were a few, but basically Jeremiah found a city full of evil. They were like Lot in Sodom and Gomorrah; in effect they basically made no difference. ADONAI had disciplined Isra’el in the past, but He had only been met with resistance. If anything, God’s discipline only made their hearts harder and they refused to repent (Jeremiah 5:3). Zion was rushing headlong toward both spiritual and physical disaster.

Therefore, the LORD, in His mercy, began to take the righteous out of their society. Devout men are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil (57:1b). He was preparing the Babylonians to destroy Jerusalem and knew the suffering that would result. So one by one, devout men and women were taken away, not to be replaced. Slowly, like a body bleeding to death, the spiritual life was drained from the City. The Bible doesn’t tell us how this was accomplished; only that God did it. The disappearance of the righteous should have been a signal to all that drastic corrective measures were at hand. But no one understood that the righteous were taken away to be spared from the evil.

Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death, literally they lie upon their beds (57:2). Those who walked uprightly had the peace of death (Second Kings 22:20), and their souls are in heaven because of their righteousness. In contrast to this peaceful state of the righteous, the wicked, however, were idol worshippers; as we will see in the next section.

Rebuke for the Wicked and Promises to the Faithful
56:9 to 58:14

It is customary for Isaiah, under the direction of the Ruach Ha’Kodesh, to go back and forth between near historical and far eschatological prophecies. The way you can distinguish between the two is content and context. In this section we see the condemnation of the Jewish religious leaders, the disappearance of the righteous, and idolatry being practiced. None of those things take place during the messianic Kingdom. Therefore, the condemnation pictured here is that of the Jewish leadership of Jeremiah’s day, about one hundred years later. That makes it a near historical prophecy. It is not unusual for Isaiah to alternate between far eschatological and near historical prophecies. Here Isaiah uses a far – near – far motif. Once again, context and content drive our interpretation, not ideology.

A far eschatological prophecy pointing to Isra’el’s national regeneration (54:1-17) and the offer of salvation to the Gentile nations during the Messianic Kingdom (55:1-56:8).

In this near historical prophecy, Isaiah rebukes the unrighteous Jews one hundred years later during the ministry of Jeremiah (56:9 to 57:13); promises to forgive them if they will repent (57:14-21); then reminds them that there is a true way to fast (58:1-14).

A far eschatological prophecy of the end of the Great Tribulation, the Second Coming and the Messianic Kingdom (59:1-21 to 60:1-22).

My House Will Be Called a House of Prayer for All Nations
56: 1-8

My house will be called a house of prayer for the nations DIG: With the absence of the Temple and the sacrifices that go along with it, how do Jews believe they are saved today? How is the Dispensation of Grace a mystery? Who is the Servant? What two examples are given to demonstrate that a place in the Kingdom will be based on the relationship to the King rather than simply being Jewish? What kind of burnt offerings and sacrifices will be offered in the Messianic Kingdom? If Jesus paid for our sins once for all when He offered Himself (Hebrews 7:27), what is their purpose? How does Isaiah show that the blessings for Israel will not be limited to Israel?

REFLECT: How do the attitudes and actions of these verses apply to us today? Why are these so crucial to God? How might you act justly and love mercy and walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8) this week in your family? Your work place? Would you describe your church or messianic synagogue as a gathering place for sinners, or a fortress to protect those “inside” from those “outside?” Why? Try seeing your church or messianic synagogue services from the viewpoint of someone from a totally different background. What “inside” practices or beliefs might prevent outsiders from regarding it as a place for them to meet God? What might you do to help change this? What “outsider” will you befriend this week?

This is a far eschatological prophecy during the Messianic Kingdom, where we see ADONAI’s gathering of His people. This section provides an excellent transition between Chapters 40-55 and Chapters 56-66. It is also parallel to ADONAI’s gathering of His people in 66:18-24 (see the chiastic structure below). Earlier chapters spoke of the Servant’s offer of salvation to the Gentile nations. Now Isaiah begins to work out it’s implications. Even though it will be a small percentage of the millions and millions of Gentiles multiplying in the Messianic Kingdom (Revelation 20:7-9), many will come to the LORD by faith. But whether it be Isra’el or the Gentile peoples, this B’rit Chadashah will not be primarily performance based, but a relationship. That point is made clear here with its shocking references to eunuchs and foreigners.

Who is especially pleasing to God? Those who carry the bloodline of Abraham and pass it on to succeeding generations of covenant people? No! His people are those who reveal a living relationship with Him in their lives. Although they may have never known Abraham and die childless, all who received Him, and to those who believe in His name, He gives the right to be become children of God (John 1:12). It is not and will not be genealogy, but faith that marks the servants of ADONAI.

Today, in the absence of the Temple and the tribe of Levites to offer the sacrifices on their behalf, Jews believe that prayer, observance of the Sabbath, and good works will save them. But the Bible, even the Hebrew Scriptures, reject that faulty theology. The Hall of Faith, Hebrews 11, is a testimony that salvation equals faith, plus nothing. In other words, we can only be saved on the basis of faith, because without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). However, during Isaiah’s day, the Jews believed that since they had the revealed Word of God in the Scriptures, and they had the Temple, that salvation was limited only to Isra’el. They were in fact, very racist in thinking that Gentiles were equivalent to dogs. They considered themselves defiled if they even went into the house of a Gentile. Here Isaiah will point out that salvation is not limited to Isra’el, but to all men (Gen 12:3). Thus, there is the announcement of salvation for all nations.

This is what the LORD says: Maintain justice and do what is right (56:1a). The advice by Isaiah is to mankind to maintain justice and do what is right. Jewish teachers have at various times attempted to make collections of different scriptures from the Torah. One of the most remarkable of these was made by Rabbi Samlai. The following is his condensed statement: Moses gave six hundred and thirteen commandments on Mount Sinai. David reduced these commandments to eleven, which may be found in the fifteenth Psalm, in answer to the question: LORD, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Isaiah further reduced the eleven to six, as may be seen in Isaiah 33:15. Then came Micah and reduced the six to three (Mic 6:8). Once more Isaiah reduced the three to two (Isaiah 56:1). Last came Habakkuk, and reduced them all to one: but the righteous will live by faith (Hab 2:4).²³²

The reason is because God says: For My salvation is close at hand (56:1a). Like Peter (Matthew 17:4), Isaiah and the other prophets expected the Kingdom to be established immediately; however, the Dispensation of Grace (see my commentary on Hebrews, to see link click Bp – The Dispensation of Grace), was a mystery to them: And to make plain to everyone that administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, the Creator of everything (Ephesians 3:9). A mystery in the Bible is different than what we usually think of as a mystery – something that cannot be discovered. It is something hidden by God, that is now revealed (Romans 11:25, 16:25; Colossians 1:27).

And My righteousness will soon be revealed (56:1b). These very expressions were used earlier in Chapter 55. These two words, salvation and righteousness, do not emphasize the concept of salvation so much, but the Person through whom it would come. That is the Suffering Servant (see Iz – See, My Servant Will Act Wisely, He Will Be Lifted Up and Exalted). So the final revelation of the Suffering Servant, because the time is short, goes out to all mankind in general.

Blessed is the one who does this, the person who holds fast, who keeps the Sabbath without desecrating it, and keeps their hands from doing any evil (56:2). He promises blessings for those who will maintain justice and do what is right. He promises blessing for those who believe that salvation is close at hand and righteousness will soon be revealed. The person who believes all this is marked by obedience; holds fast, keeps the Sabbath without desecrating it, and keeps his hand from doing evil. The future salvation Isaiah announces in verses 1 and 2 will extend to two unique groups, foreigners and eunuchs, in verses 3 through 8.

First, the foreigner. Let no foreigner who is bound to ADONAI say: The LORD will surely exclude me from His people (56:3a). The foreigner who has bound himself to the ADONAI will not be excluded from His people Isra’el. First, the term foreigner may have a special reference to Ammonites and Moabites. The Torah teaches that no Ammonite or Moabite shall enter the assembly of the LORD; even to the tenth generation none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the LORD forever (Deuteronomy 23:3 NKJ). Notice how the word forever is limited to the tenth generation? The Hebrew word forever does not mean forever as we think of it. The Hebrew word never means eternity as we think of it. It merely means up to the end of a period of time. It could be a person’s life, it could be a matter of several generations, or it could mean the end of a dispensational age. David would say: I will dwell in the House of the LORD forever (Psalm 23:6). He meant during his lifetime. When David said: I reigned in Jerusalem forever, he did not really reign there forever, he actually reigned there for forty years. The rabbis teach that the Messianic Kingdom is forever. But the B’rit Chadashah tells us that it lasts for a thousand years (Revelation 20:1-6). There is no contradiction.

In Deuteronomy 23 two groups were excluded from participating in the Temple service. One group was the eunuch, and the other group included Ammonites and Moabites whose origin started with an incestuous relationship between Lot and his two daughters (see my commentary on Genesis Fb – Let’s Get Our Father to Drink Wine, and then Lie With Him to Preserve Our Family Line). If an Ammonite or Moabite accepted the God of Israel, he or she would become a believer in that sense but still could not participate in the Tabernacle or Temple service even down to the tenth generation. But this will not be so during the Dispensation of the Torah (see the commentary on Exodus Da – Dispensation of the Torah), but the Dispensation of the Messianic Kingdom (see the commentary on Revelation Fh – The Dispensation of the Messianic Kingdom).

Secondly, the eunuch. And let not any eunuch complain, “I am only a dry tree” (56:3b). The eunuch, or one who has been emasculated, was not permitted to participate in the Temple service. Something in the image of God had been destroyed. The eunuch could no longer choose to have children with God’s help. Therefore, the Torah said that worshipers needed to be without any physical defects before God, as the sacrifices offered to God were without physical defects. The Ammonites or Moabites were in the same position. So these two groups under the Torah were unable to participate, but under the B’rit Chadashah during the messianic Kingdom they will be able to participate. Although literal, both groups point to an all-embracing inclusiveness. Now Isaiah elaborates on both groups.

The eunuch is elaborated on first. It seems that the antichrist castrated many male Jews during the second half of the Great Tribulation. Like Hitler, the antichrist tortured and experimented on them. But this physical handicap did not exclude them from the B’rit Chadashah, unlike the First. For this is what the LORD says: To the eunuchs who keep My Sabbaths, who choose what pleases Me and hold fast to My Covenant – to them I will give within My Temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off . . . no pun intended (56:4-5). This contrasts with the exclusion of eunuchs under the Torah: No one who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of ADONAI (Deuteronomy 23:1). Eunuchs will have a place in Temple worship and they will keep the Sabbath in the Messianic Kingdom. But even though they will not be able to have children, they will have their very names written upon the walls of God’s House because of their faithfulness.

Then Isaiah elaborates on the foreigners. And foreigners who bind themselves to the LORD to serve Him, to love the name of the LORD, and to worship Him, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to My New Covenant (Jer 31:31-34). They too will receive a place in the Messianic Kingdom. God says these I will bring to My Holy Mountain and give them joy in My house of prayer (56:6-7a). What is true of the eunuch is also going to be true of the foreigner. That which was forbidden to them under the Torah will be permitted under the B’rit Chadashah because they will love the name of the LORD and will worship Him.

Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on My bronze altar (56:7b). (see the commentary on Exodus Fa – The Build an Altar of Acacia Wood Overlaid with Bronze). And while their burnt offerings and sacrifices were not acceptable under the Torah, they will be acceptable in the Kingdom (see Db – The Nine Missing Articles in Messiah’s Coming Temple). They will have the privilege of offering sacrifices on the burnt altar that will be viewed as communion because we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all (Hebrews 10:10). This is what Solomon had envisioned long before (First Kings 8:41-43), and what Malachi would see as inevitable (Malachi 1:11).

Then we see his conclusion. Adonai ELOHIM, He who will gather the Jewish exiles of Israel from around the world, says: I will gather still others to them besides those already gathered (56:8). Grammatically, Adonai ELOHIM stands first in a sentence here and in 1:24. Here, as there, the purpose of this unusual construction seems to give the sentence a special emphasis. Isaiah wants to make it very clear that God will not be finished with those outcasts during the Messianic Kingdom. The blessings for Isra’el will not be limited to Isra’el. The very one who has promised to regather Isra’el, will regather still others to them besides those Jews already gathered. God will gather Gentiles, in particular those Gentiles who could not worship in the Temple under the Torah. God, speaking through John, says: I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to My voice, and there shall be one flock and one Shepherd (Jn 10:16).

Indeed, God says that My house will be called a house of prayer for all Gentile nations (56:7c). Jesus quoted Isaiah when He cleansed the Temple after His triumphal entry into Jerusalem (see the commentary on The Life of Christ Iu – Jesus Entered the Temple Area and Drove Out All Who Were Buying and Selling). Notice the phrase will be called is in the future. It had not happened yet. But it will be true in the Messianic Kingdom although we do have a foretaste of it. Who was both a foreigner and a eunuch and came to salvation through the book of Isaiah? The Ethiopian eunuch in the book of Acts (see the commentary on Acts Bb – An Ethiopian Asks about Isaiah 53). This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the book of Isaiah the prophet (Acts 8:26-39).

Little has changed today. A Christian worship service is beginning, and two young men come in who are clearly out of place. Their clothes are outlandish and not very clean. Their hair is long and their arms are covered with tattoos. They are clearly not of the evangelical subculture. Are they earnestly seeking salvation? Are they believers who have left all to follow Christ? Who knows? Who cares? They don’t belong here because they are different from us. So an usher, perhaps tactfully or perhaps rudely, goes up and tells them that they don’t belong. And God may say to us the same thing He said to the returned Israelites, “Don’t you dare exclude them from My house. They love Me more than you do, as you could tell from their lives if you took the time to look. Loving obedience is the only family credentials that matter to Me!”²³³

There is a chiastic structure from here to the end of the book where the first letter is parallel to the second letter, and so on, with the letter F being the turning point.

A The faithful remnant will turn to righteousness (58:1-8)

B Rebuke for the wicked and promises to the faithful (56:9 to 58:14)

C Israel confessing her sins (59:1-15a)

D God, the divine warrior (59:15b-21)

E Jerusalem, the Wife of the LORD (60:1-22)

F The Coming of the Messiah and His Kingdom (61:1-11)

E Jerusalem, the Wife of the LORD (62:1-12)

D God, the divine warrior (63:1-6)

C Isra’el confessing her sins (63:7 to 64:11)

B Rebuke for the wicked and promises to the faithful (65:1 to 66:17)

A The faithful remnant will turn to righteousness (66:18-24)

My Word That Goes Out from My Mouth
Will Not Return to Me Empty
55: 1-13

My word that goes out from My mouth will not return to Me empty DIG: What time period do we see here? And what is God’s message to these unsaved Gentiles? What three types of drinks are offered, and what do they represent? Why is King David mentioned? What kind of authority will he have? How will he be a witness? Why will Isra’el be the center of Gentile attention? What does it mean to seek the LORD? How long do the unbelieving Gentiles have to be saved? What are the two reasons that they should do so?

REFLECT: How does the question in 55:2 strike you? How does Isaiah’s invitation relate to Jesus’ words in John 6:35? What does it mean to “feed” upon Jesus? This past week, would you say you have been living on spiritual junk food, or God’s meat and potatoes? Why? God’s Word is compared to food (Psalm 119:103; Ezeki’el 3:1-3; Revelation 10:10) because it is where we obtain our spiritual nourishment. So there are only two kinds of spiritual food; there is angel’s food or devil’s food and if you aren’t eating one, you’re eating the other. What have you been eating lately? Joy and peace are the fruit God’s Word produces. At what stage of development is the fruit in your life?

This is a far eschatological prophecy during the Messianic Kingdom. The work of the Suffering Servant in Chapter 53 made possible the offer of salvation in this chapter. ADONAI calls the Gentile nations to come and eat and drink spiritual food. Speaking both for God and as God, the prophet issued a sweeping invitation: Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost (55:1)! Shockingly, Isaiah says that it may be acquired without cost. What merchant would ever think of selling his goods free of charge? But God does! How can He do it? Perhaps Someone else has already paid the price? We have everything we need necessary for eternal life – without cost. Why wait to accept the invitation?²²⁹

The call brings to mind Jesus’ comments to the Gentile Samaritan woman. If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water. “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?” Everyone who drinks the water you speak of will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up in to eternal life (John 4:10-14).

There are three types of drink offered. First, come to the waters. The plural form is used. In Hebrew the plural form a superlative degree. This water is too wonderful to be expressed in the singular form. Waters also speaks of abundance, of quantity as well as quality. This is water for the soul. This is the water that Yeshua offered using the same symbolism when He stood in the Temple and said in a loud voice: Let anyone who is thirsty come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them (John 7:37b-38). The Gentiles who are not killed by the end of the Great Tribulation will have another opportunity to accept rivers of living water during the Messianic Kingdom.

Secondly, come and buy wine, which symbolizes joy. David wrote: You have filled my heart with greater joy than when their grain and new wine abound (Psalm 4:7; also see Ecclesiastes 9:7; Isaiah 16:10, 22:13, 24:11; Jeremiah 31:12, 48:33; Zechariah 10:7). Joy is the flag that is flown in the heart when the Master is residing within.

Thirdly, come and buy milk. The milk of the Word of God is necessary for spiritual growth. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation (First Peter 2:2).

Is a piece of your life missing? We might wake up one day and find ourselves far from ADONAI. Sometimes we grow accustomed to feeling distant from God. This makes it easier to sin, complicating the sense that something important is missing. But no matter how far we may drift from God, He wants us near. He appeared to His people through His prophet: Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy (55:2a)? Worldly pursuits involve the spending of money and labor without satisfying the soul that craves the spiritual life. The solution is in the second part of the verse: Listen intently to Me and give Me your full and undivided attention. Eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of food (55:2b). If something is missing in your life, remember that God is the only One who can fully and abundantly satisfy you. The God-shaped void within your heart cannot be filled by anyone else.

Give ear and come to Me; hear Me, that your soul may live. I will make an everlasting Covenant [for] you, my faithful love promised to David (55:3). King David is mentioned here for two reasons. First, the Covenant was everlasting, based on God’s faithful love promised to David (Second Samuel 7:11b-16). The point is that just as the Davidic Covenant is sure, so is the New Covenant. The obligation of the Gentiles living in the Messianic Kingdom will be to listen and come to God. The promise is that if they hear, in the sense of doing that which is heard, in the sense of obeying what they know, their soul may live. And if they respond to the invitation of salvation, God’s response will be an everlasting, or B’rit Chadashah (Jeremiah 31:31-34).

The second reason king David is mentioned is that he will be given the dual titles of king and prince in the government in the Messianic Kingdom (Psalm 89:34-37). The absolute monarchy of the Messiah will extend to Israel as well as to the Gentile nations (see the commentary on Revelation, to see link click Fi – The Government of the Messianic Kingdom). But directly under Jesus, having authority over all Isra’el, will be the resurrected David, who will be given the dual titles of king and prince. He will be a king because He will rule over Isra’el (Jeremiah 30:9; Ezeki’el 34:23-24, 37:24-25; Hosea 3:5), and He will be a prince because He will reign under the authority of the Messiah. The Gentile peoples will have kings, and Isra’el will have a king. The difference is that the Gentile kings will have their natural bodies, while David will have his resurrected body.

To the nations under the Messiah’s leadership, ADONAI says: See, I have made David a witness to the Gentile peoples (55:4a). This is a surprising announcement, for Isaiah uses a term that is never applied to David in the historical books of the TaNaKh: a witness. As he is obedient to the LORD, he is a witness to the Gentile peoples to be obedient to ADONAI. He will be building a kingdom for himself, but declaring the character of the One who alone can be called King of all the earth. Because he is a witness, he is also a leader and commander of the Gentile peoples (55:4b). So in that sense David is in a unique position and God calls him three things. First, he is a witness to the peoples because he will demonstrate the faithful love of God. Secondly, he will be a leader (2 Sam 7:8). And thirdly, he will be a commander. The Gentiles will be given every opportunity to accept Yeshua as the Messiah and David will be a positive example for them to emulate.

Then Isra’el’s position is emphasized. Surely you will summon the Gentile nations you know not, and those Gentle nations that do not know you will hasten to you (see Jw – Foreigners Will Rebuild Your Walls, and Their Kings Will Serve You). And the reason Gentile nations will run to Isra’el is because of the LORD her God, the Holy One of Isra’el, for He will empower her with splendor (55:5). This is the same point that Zechariah 8 makes, the Jews will become the center of Gentile attention in the Messianic Kingdom (see the commentary on Revelation Fj – My Chosen People Will Inherit My Mountains). So what Isaiah says here first, Zechariah elaborates on later.

For the Gentiles, the invitation to salvation is followed by an exhortation that will have both positive and negative aspects. On the positive side, they are to seek the LORD while He may be found and call on Him while He is near (55:6). The inhabitants of the earth (Revelation 3:10, 6:10, 8:13 11:10, 13:8, 12 and 14, 17:2 and 8), who hated ADONAI so much during the Great Tribulation, will live in a perfect society where they will not be permitted to act on their own sin nature. They will be encouraged to call on Yeshua Messiah while He is near because He will be ruling and reigning directly from the Most Holy Place in the Millennial Temple in Jerusalem (see Db – The Nine Missing Articles in Messiah’s Coming Temple). As a result of these experiences, they will not be able to offer any further excuses for their sin.

Now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation (Second Corinthians 6:2b). In other words, while the Gentiles have suffered the wrath of God during the Great Tribulation, He will still be willing to extend mercy during the Messianic Kingdom. Jesus uses this same intensity of exhortation in His parable of the king’s banquet (see my commentary on The Life of Christ Hp – The Parable of the Great Banquet). When those who were first invited to the banquet refused to come, the king told his servants to go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full. God has made all the preparations, and he will find people to respond to His invitation. As Paul says: not many of these will be mighty, wise, influential, or noble by human standards (First Corinthians 1:26-29). The mighty, the wise, and the noble demand that God’s ways and thoughts be made intelligible to them first. But the lowly, the helpless and the broken don’t have to have things explained to them; they simply see the open door and the loaded tables. During the Messianic Kingdom, the Gentiles will be lowly, helpless and broken.

An illustration of both the gravity and the intensity of this invitation can be pictured by a time of tragedy, such as a flood. A mother, a son, and a daughter are clinging to the upper branches of a large tree surrounded by raging floodwaters. The rescue team in a boat cannot get right up to the tree because of debris, but the distance between the boat and the tree can be jumped with effort. The team in the boat shout with urgency, “Jump, jump.” But the family members are afraid. Finally, summoning up courage, the son jumps and lands safely in the boat. Then the daughter jumps. She falls into the water, but the rescuers are ready and quickly pull her into the boat. Now the rescuers along with the son and daughter plead with the mother, “Jump, jump, you can do it!” There is a compelling urgency and exhortation. But she is afraid, and as she debates whether to jump or remain in the apparent safety of the tree, there is a terrible crack, the tree falls and she is swept away with it. Seek the LORD while He may be found.²³⁰

On the negative side, the wicked must forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. The only way they will be able to do that is for them to turn to the LORD, and He will have mercy on them, and to our God, for He will freely pardon (55:7). If the Gentiles will turn to Messiah, He will have mercy and freely pardon all their wickedness and unrighteousness. There is an implied urgency here because those unbelieving Gentiles will have until their hundredth birthday to accept Yeshua as the Messiah or die (see Kq – The Wolf and the Lamb Will Feed Together, and the Lion Will Eat Straw Like the Ox).

Can God so quickly forget and forgive? From a human perspective this seems impossible. But in the next two verses God differentiates His thinking processes from our thinking processes. These two verses stress the superiority of God’s thoughts and ways. To be sure, God’s invitation comes to us as He desperately pleads with us to jump from that apparently secure tree of pride and self-sufficiency into His arms. It is a plea to jump from appearance to reality. The life outside of God is only apparently secure and abundant. It really has none of that to offer in the end. To remain in the world is to choose loss and spiritual poverty. It is to live in defiance of the God who made us. Thus, God calls us to jump out of what is only an appearance into what is a reality. Come from hunger to the richest of food, from thirst to water, from sadness to joy, and death to pardon.²³¹

Two reasons are then stated why the unbelieving Gentiles should ask for forgiveness of their sins and be saved. First, God’s work is different: For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the LORD. As the heaven’s are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts (55:8-9). So if we sometimes cannot understand why God does things the way He does, it is because He has a different frame of reference than we do. God’s work is different. And one of these differences lies between the carrying out of that which has been promised. We may resolve to do something and then not do it. God’s Word is totally different as we see in the next two verses.

Secondly, His Word is dependable: Having spoken of the future Messianic Kingdom and their salvation as a result of it, the LORD assures the Gentiles that His Word will accomplish what He has said it will. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is My Word that goes out from My mouth. (55:10-11a). His Word is like rain and snow that water the earth and help give it life. God’s Word is as crucial to the process of salvation as rain is to the process of plant growth. It will not return to Me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it (55:11b). Just as rain comes down and accomplishes the purpose for which it was sent, when God sends His Word out it accomplishes the purpose for which it was sent. It will not return to Him empty. The reason for turning to God is the dependability of His Word. What God has said about the certainty of pardon for sin being available is absolutely dependable. And because God’s Word is dependable, it accomplishes nine things at the moment of belief, faith, and trust in Jesus Christ as Lord of one’s life (see the commentary on The Life of Christ Bw – What God Does for Us at the Moment of Faith).

Because God’s Word will accomplish the purpose for which it was sent, those unbelieving Gentiles in the Messianic Kingdom can be saved. For you will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands (55:12). Instead of the thornbush, the pine tree will grow, and instead of briers, the myrtle will grow (55:13a). These verses are obviously figurative, mountains and hills do not sing; and trees don’t clap their hands. Therefore, the interpretation is likewise figurative. Those Gentile peoples will be changed from the worthless thornbush (Proverbs 26:9; Isaiah 7:19, 33:12, 55:13; Matthew 7:16) and briers (Judges 8:16; Job 31:10; Isaiah 5:6, 7:23-25, 9:18, 10:17, 27:4, 32:13; Ezeki’el 2:6, 28:24; Hosea 9:6; Luke 6:44),to the productive pine and myrtle trees (Nehemiah 8:15; Isaiah 41:19; Zechariah 1:7-11).

This will be for the LORD’s renown, for an everlasting sign, which will not be destroyed (55:13b). The salvation of the unbelieving Gentiles will serve as an everlasting sign, which will never be destroyed because their salvation cannot be lost. Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light (Matthew 11:28-30).

The Offer of Salvation to the Gentile Nations
55:1 to 56:8

This is a far eschatological prophecy describing life during the Messianic Kingdom. If you ask most believers about the Great Commission they will normally direct you to Matthew 28:18-20. Jesus came to them and said: All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. Yeshua told them to go and make disciples of all nations. But if the foundational story of the Bible is the Great Commission, is it mentioned anywhere else in Scripture? Yes, in the book of Revelation. If we see its culmination in the Bible with every tribe, language, people, and nation around the throne of God (Revelation 5:9, 11:9, 14:6), was the Great Commission also present at the beginning of the Bible? Yes, at the call of Abraham.

God said to Abraham: I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you (Genesis 12:3). God said all. The offer of salvation is to be made to every tribe, language, people, and nation on the face of the earth. This means that what we actually have in Genesis 12:3 is the Great Commission. Therefore, Jesus never “gave” the Great Commission, He “reviewed” the Great Commission of Genesis 12:3. This is the story of the Bible. It starts in Genesis, runs through the TaNaKh and flows into the 66 books. It’s one cohesive theme. It unifies all sixty-six books of the Bible to form one story. God’s desire is to see all peoples on the earth given the offer of salvation through His Son Yeshua.

We know that God offers salvation to both Jews and Gentiles. However, by the end of the Great Tribulation all the Jews still gathered at Bozrah will accept Christ just before the Second Coming (see the commentary on Revelation, to see link click Ev – The Basis for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ). After a seventy-five day interval (see the commentary on Revelation Ey – The Seventy-Five Day Interval), the thousand-year reign of the Messiah from Jerusalem begins (see Db – The Nine missing Articles in Messiah’s Coming Temple). Therefore, there will not be any Jewish conversions during the Millennium – only Gentile conversions. In other words, the blessings for Isra’el will not be limited to Isra’el. And those who respond to the invitation of God in any age will be blessed with an everlasting Covenant or the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-34).

In Righteousness You Will Be Established,
Terror Will Be Far Removed
54: 9-17

In righteousness you will be established, terror will be far removed DIG: How would the Messianic Kingdom be like the days of Noah for God? How can we be confident that Isaiah is prophesying about the Millennial Kingdom and not the return from the Babylonian Captivity? Why is Isra’el safe from harm? What is the basis of the restoration of the relationship of the LORD to Isra’el?

REFLECT: Have you ever felt the “ground” under your spiritual life quake? Can you trace God’s control of events in your own life, which seemed “out of control?” How do you keep yourself centered? Of the promises spoken of here, which one means the most to you now? Why? How does that hope make a difference in the way you live now?

As a result of Isra’el’s national confession of sin at the end of the Great Tribulation, this is a far eschatological prophecy pointing to Isra’el’s national regeneration and life during the Messianic Kingdom. God’s New Covenant of peace and mercy with Isra’el will be eternal, like the Covenant He made with mankind after the Flood in the days of Noah, more permanent than the apparently everlasting mountains and hills. The basis of the restoration of the relationship of Isra’el to ADONAI is the Covenant of peace or the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-34).

For me this is like the days of Noah, when I swore that the waters of Noah would never again cover the earth. So now I have sworn not to be angry with you, never to rebuke you again (54:9). God promised in the Noahic Covenant that He would never again devastate the earth as punishment against mankind (see the commentary on Genesis, to see link click Da – Never Again Will There Be a Flood to Destroy the Earth). Similarly here, God promised that the day was coming when He would never be angry and rebuke, or punish Isra’el again. Statements like this teach us that Isaiah was prophesying about the Messianic Kingdom rather than the return from the Babylonian Captivity, for Isra’el suffered the anger of God many times since then.

“Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet My unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor My Covenant of peace be removed,” says the LORD, who has compassion on you (54:10). In the same way the New Covenant guarantees the end of wrath, here ADONAI guarantees His unfailing love for Isra’el regardless of what may happen to the earth. This is not a love that is blind to our humanness, but it is the love that never fails of which Paul knew (First Corinthians 13:8). God is a Covenant keeper; we can be assured that what He says will happen. So once that sixth stage is entered into (see Je – The Restoration of the Wife of the LORD), once there is a remarriage between God and Isra’el, that remarriage will remain intact forever.

Many passages in the TaNaKh speak of a yet future time of true peace and prosperity for the righteous followers of God under the benevolent physical rule of Yeshua Messiah on earth. Zechariah 14:9 says: ADONAI will be King over all the whole earth. On that day there will be one LORD, and His name the only name. Then in Zechariah 14:16-21 we read about what the Messianic Kingdom will be like. But Ezeki’el 39:21-48 presents the most detailed account of the Millennium found in Scripture. Other passages in the TaNaKh that comment on the Messianic Kingdom include Psalm 2:6-9; Isaiah 2:2-4; 11:6-9; 65:18-23; Jeremiah 31:12-14, 31-37; Ezeki’el 34:25-29; 37:1-6; and Chapters 40-48; Dani’el 2:25; 713-14; Joel 2:21-27; Amos 9:13-14; Micah 4:1-7; and Zephaniah 3:9-20. These are only a few of the many prophetic passages that describe this Kingdom. The New Covenant also speaks of the coming Millennial Kingdom in passages such as Matthew 5:1-20; 19:27-30; 26:27-29; Mark 14:25; Luke 22:18; First Corinthians 6:9-11 and Revelation 20. Interestingly, it’s not until we get to Revelation that we are told the Messianic Kingdom will last a thousand years.²²⁸

God starts out contrasting Isra’el’s past and future conditions. In her past she had been afflicted by Nebuchadnezzar and in her future by the antichrist. Needless to say, neither had comforted her. Isaiah lamented: O afflicted City, lashed by storms and in despair (54:11a). But ADONAI was not unaware of the suffering of either His City or His people. And if you are a believer today, who loves the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, He is not unaware of your despair. On the one hand, ADONAI does not lightly dismiss our brokenness and emotions surrounding our suffering, even when He tells us that those conditions are not permanent. But on the other hand, this description tells us that the blessed hope of the people of the LORD are not given in ignorance of the realities of the situation. Hope is often dismissed as something that is possible only by denying the hard facts of reality. If that is sometimes true, it is certainly not true here. It is precisely to the despairing, deficient and depressed Isra’el that these incredible promises will be made.

But that is going to change once the nation repents and asks Messiah to return. Isaiah paints a word picture with the most glowing colors. He says that ADONAI will build up Jerusalem with stones made of precious gems, symbolic of His care and esteem for the value of the City. I will build you with stones of turquoise, your foundations with sapphires. I will make your battlements of rubies, your gates of sparkling jewels and all your walls of precious stones (54:11b-12). In the future, Isra’el will be glorified and that glorification is seen here in a figurative description of the restored Jerusalem (see the commentary on Revelation Fu – A Great High Wall with Twelve Gates)

Our hope and the hope of Isra’el is not in her own inner resources. It is in ADONAI, the One who is both infinitely stronger and infinitely more trustworthy than anyone, or any man made god the world has ever known. We wait for the blessed hope – the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ (Titus 2:13).

We now move to the interpretation of the preceding imagery. The means by which Isra’el will obtain this glorification is by God’s teaching. All your children will be taught by, or will be disciples of, the LORD, and great will be their peace. In righteousness you will be established (54:13-14a). Once again, this could not have been referring to the return of the Babylonian exiles because ADONAI did not teach all of Isra’el’s children after their return from Babylon; in fact, most did not return to the Land. Even today, Isra’el is generally a secular society. During the Messianic Kingdom, however, the knowledge of the LORD will cover the earth. The antichrist or Satan will not oppress them any longer; they will be free of tyranny and will have nothing to fear. God says that terror will be far removed from them; it will not come near them (54:14b).

Never underestimate the ponderings of a believing parent. Never underestimate the power that comes when a parent pleads with ADONAI on behalf of a child. Who knows how many prayers are being answered right now because of the faithful prayers of a parent ten or twenty years ago? There is no set formula, but God listens to thoughtful parents. Praying for our children is a noble task. If what we are doing, in this fast-paced society, is taking us away from prayer time for our children, we’re too busy. There is nothing more special, more precious, than that time a parent spends struggling and pondering with the LORD on behalf of a child.

Isra’el’s enemies will be totally defeated before the thousand years begins. The principle is this: If anyone does attack you, it will not be My doing, whoever attacks you will surrender to you (54:15). This cannot be the return of the Babylonian exiles because in 70 AD Titus the Roman general and his legions came and destroyed Jerusalem and killed about a million Jews. Surely they did not surrender to the Jews at that time. No, this is the gathering of all the nations of the world against Isra’el at the end of the Great Tribulation (see Kh – The Eight Stage Campaign of Armageddon). But when they do attack it will not be God’s doing because they will do so out of their own free will. They attack because they want to attack, not because the LORD makes them attack. James makes this principle very clear (James 1:13-15). Although the army of the antichrist will be destroyed in the Campaign of Armageddon, millions upon millions of Gentiles will surrender and enter the Millennial Kingdom (see the commentary on Revelation Fk – Gentiles in the Messianic Kingdom) for one last chance at salvation (see Kq – The Wolf and the Lamb Will Feed Together and the Lion Will Eat Straw Like the Ox).

ADONAI controls human history. Maybe not every single little decision that we make, but the ultimate result. He will not violate our free will no matter how much He loves us; we can say no to the LORD and make it stick. He uses our fallen nature, and Satan’s evil desires to get the end result He wanted all along. Since God is the Creator who creates both the soldier (destroyer), and the weapon in his hand; and not only the weapon in his hand but the blacksmith who made the weapon, we should not worry that anything could come against us that would be contrary to the LORD’s purposes for our lives (Romans 8:28-39). See, it is I who created the blacksmith who fans the coals into flame and forges a weapon fit for its work. And it is I who have created the destroyer to work havoc (54:16). No part of the universe is exempt from the purposes of God.

This is the conclusion of the entire chapter. No weapon forged against you will prevail, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you (54:17a). Such it is in our own day. The thousand year Third Reich of Nazism, whose centerpiece was its “final solution” against Judaism, survived little more than ten years. And the main result of its vendetta was the establishment of the Jewish state of Isra’el, which had not existed for 2000 years previously. The antichrist will come closer to “the final solution” than Hitler ever did. Hitler’s persecution took place primarily in Germany, but the antichrist will kill Jews all over the world, but he still will not succeed. ADONAI’s people will survive long after the antichrist is gone. This is the unique heritage of the servants of the LORD, which is Isra’el. And this is their vindication from Me, declares the LORD (54:17b). It is comforting to know that Isra’el may fail Him, but because of the Covenant relationship that God has with her (Deuteronomy 29:1-29), He will not fail Isra’el, and because He will not fail her, He will not fail us.

Look what happens when you combine verses 54:17a and 54:3. No weapon forged against you will prevail and your descendants will dispossess nations. How can this happen? It will happen because Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, will be ruling and reigning from His throne in Jerusalem (see Db – The Nine Missing Articles in Messiah’s Coming Temple). But for all the human effort, there will be no peace in Jerusalem until the King of Peace comes. When that happens, the opportunity for salvation will culminate during the Messianic Kingdom.

For Your Maker is Your Husband,
the LORD Almighty is His Name
54: 1-8

For your Maker is your Husband, the LORD almighty is His name DIG: How can we be confident that this passage refers to the Messianic Kingdom and not the return of the exiles from Babylon? Earlier Abraham and Sarah were used as an example of faith for the believing remnant (51:2). How is Sarah’s experience reflected in these verses as well (Genesis 18:9-14; 21:6-7)? Since singleness and barrenness were causes of shame for a woman, how would that exemplify the experience of the believing remnant during the Great Tribulation? What is the point of each analogy?

REFLECT: What circumstances have caused you to feel abandoned by the LORD? At those times, as a part of the bride of Christ (Ephesians 5:25-27; Second Corinthians 11:2-3), how might you be helped by the picture of God as your husband renewing His vows to you? When have you felt like a slave bought off of the slave block? Who bought you back? How much did it cost? What is your response?

As a result of Isra’el’s national confession of sin, this is a far eschatological prophecy pointing to Isra’el’s national regeneration and return to the Land in peace and security during the messianic Kingdom. In Chapter 54 the invitation is limited to Isra’el. At the end of the Great Tribulation all Isra’el will be saved (Romans 11:26a). Jeremiah tells us that there will be no Jewish unbelievers in the messianic Kingdom when he says: , No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, “Know the LORD,” because they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more” (Jeremiah 31:31-34). Every Jew will accept Messiah when the time comes.

Sing, O barren woman, you who never bore a child; burst into song, shout for joy (54:1a). It is cruel to ask a barren woman to sing unless you are able to offer her the only thing that will make her happy – children! And during the Messianic Kingdom He will make a barren Sarah more fruitful than a fertile Hagar. Being a barren woman in Isra’el was a disgrace; but children were a sign of the LORD’s blessing. Here Isra’el is pictured as a woman who had no children, but by the grace of God became fertile again. First, there is a call to burst into song and shout for joy, and it is a gradual development upward. First, sing. Second, burst into song. Third, shout for joy. The problems during the Great Tribulation will vanish and future blessings of the Messianic Kingdom will be at hand.

You who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband: says the LORD (54:1b). The past problems are spelled out: you who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman. The point here is that Isra’el has produced far more children during her spiritual adultery, separation, and divorce than when she was faithful to her husband. Because of that, the majority of the children Isra’el has produced have been illegitimate ones. For that reason, the land has become desolate. The Hebrew word desolate is a reference to being desolate without inhabitants.

However, now there is going to be a changed condition. In the Near East women were responsible for the construction and maintenance of the family tents, so it is appropriate that this formerly barren woman would now be so fertile that she would be called upon to enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes (54:2). Jerusalem, once desolate and in mourning during the Great Tribulation, will be crowded with people. The land that is about to be possessed is to be filled completely. Never in Jewish history has Isra’el possessed and inhabited all of the Promised Land. The land God marked out for them in Joshua 1:4 is about 300,000 square miles. Even in the height of Isra’el’s power under David and Solomon they only occupied about 30,000 square miles. That’s quite a difference. But when the remarriage takes place, for the first time Isra’el will possess all of the Promised Land. But why do they need a bigger tent? We find the answer to that in the next verse.

Then God tells Isra’el, “For you will spread out to the right and left (which are also used for north and south) or on all sides; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities” (54:3). The reason she is to enlarge the area in which she will live and the tent itself is because she will produce far more children in her faithfulness than she did in her unfaithfulness. Furthermore, Isra’el will possess and rebuild areas and cities that she has never before inhabited as her own (See how 54:17 also relates to this verse). This is quite a verse. Will they dispossess the Palestinians? Will they dispossess Jordan? Syria? Iran? This did not happen when the exiles returned home from the Babylonian Captivity. In fact, in 70 AD the Romans came and killed over a million Jews and dispersed the survivors throughout the world. The only time Isra’el will possess all the Land that the LORD intended for them to have is during the Millennial Kingdom.

Do not be afraid; you will not suffer shame. Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated. You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood (54:4). The LORD will take back Isra’el as a man would take back his unfaithful wife. One of the results of being childless in the ancient world was terrible shame (First Samuel 2:3-5 and Luke 1:25). A woman was considered at best, a failure and at worst, guilty of some secret sin. Her entire life was spent in humiliation (Genesis 16:4 and First Samuel 1:6). Historically, Isra’el had been humiliated; hunted, and put to shame in the Great Tribulation. But now God says to the barren woman, to the humiliated nation, the days of shame are over. The feelings of inferiority are to be removed. On the negative side, she will not suffer shame, disgrace, or feel humiliation again. On the positive side, she will be so fruitful that she will remember no more the reproach of her widowhood during the Great Tribulation.

For your Maker is your Husband, the LORD of heaven’s angelic armies (CJB) is His name (54:5a). How is it that the childless, rejected woman should still have hope after all the fruitless years, after the depths of her sins against her Husband? The answer lies in Him. Who is this husband of hers? He is no ordinary person.²²⁶ And who is Isra’el’s Husband? Isra’el’s Husband is Isra’el’s Maker. The Holy One of Isra’el is her Redeemer (35:9-10), the ever-present Next-of-Kin, at hand to meet every need, bear every burden and pay every price. He is called the God of all the earth (54:5b). It is one thing to want to redeem her, but it is quite another to have the power to do so. Our God has both the desire and the power. How so? He is not merely one of the many idols Isra’el had worshiped in the past, He is the same one who is called the God of the whole earth. He has a unique relationship to Isra’el. Not only is He Isra’el’s Maker, but her Redeemer also.

Inevitably, this close relationship between Maker, Redeemer and Husband reminds us of the story of Ruth. She was a childless, foreign widow, as humiliating and hopeless position as it was possible to be in. But the man who fell in love with her was also just the man who was able to redeem the land and the name of her dead husband. This is our LORD, the One who is able make all things right. Who is this Redeemer? He is the Holy One of Isra’el. This is Isaiah’s favorite term to express the absolute supremacy of God. He is the only One who is so holy that to see Him is to die (Exodus 33:12-23), and at the same time so humble as to be born in a stable and die a criminal’s death on the cross.

The LORD will call you back as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit, a wife who married young, only to be rejected, says your God (54:6). As for the wife, at one time she was a wife deserted and distressed in spirit, a wife who married young, only to be rejected. But God, who has the power to do whatever He wishes, does not want to leave her in the terrible condition that her sins have left her in but to buy her back again. Here our thoughts automatically go to the story of Hosea. His wife’s continual prostitution had brought her to the slave block (Hosea 3:2). Hosea could have easily left her to be sold and no one would have blamed him. But as he looked at her, he didn’t see the used, embittered adulteress with resentful eyes and broken dreams. He saw the wife of his youth, with laughing, dancing eyes. And even though she had been rejected as a result of her own foolishness, her husband bought her back off of the slave block.

Lastly, we see the contrast between the wrath and the blessing of God. Although her persecution lasted for a long period of time, yet her future blessings will make her period of abandonment seem like only a brief moment. Though not stated here, Isaiah had given the reasons for it several times. It was because of the nation’s sins (50:1-11), and the LORD’s commitment to His word. The contrast continues.

For a brief moment it seemed like I abandoned you, but with deep compassion I had always planned to bring you back. In a surge of anger I hid My face from you for a moment (54:7-8a). Although at one time God was angry at Isra’el (28:15 and 18), and hid His face from her for a moment, His anger would not last forever. God’s anger is temporary, but His love is everlasting. In fact, God is love (First John 4:8b). This is His unchanging essence. But we should not be troubled over the idea of an angry God. ADONAI is passionately concerned about us and the thought that we should destroy ourselves and our relationship with Him stirs Him to action. How much better is it to have a loving father who is angry with his child’s self-destructive behavior than one who neither knows or cares what is happening? Our society is falling apart because of uninvolved, uncaring fathers.

But with everlasting loving kindness (hesed) I will have compassion on you, says the LORD your Redeemer (54:8b). Yes, God’s anger may have surged over Isra’el like a tsunami during the Great Tribulation, but that was nothing compared to the unchanging sea of His righteous deliverance. He will have compassion on her again. As with Gomer on the slave block, only ADONAI can see the wife of His youth as He looks at Isra’el stuck in her sin. Before she had confessed her sin and asked Jesus to come back to save her (see the commentary on Revelation, to see link click Ev – The Basis for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ), God had already reconciled Himself to her, and had satisfied Himself of her sins through the death of His Son.

The TaNaKh says it this way: Surely He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered Him stricken by God, smitten by Him and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed (53:3-4). The B’rit Chadashah says it this way: But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). All that remains for us to do, as it will be for the nation of Isra’el at the end of the Great Tribulation, is to accept this as fact and rejoice in it.²²⁷

It is not only Isra’el, but all of us who are going to look back at what we thought was horrible down here in this life. It will seem, as Paul described it, as our light and momentary troubles that will achieve for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. We need to get our eyes focused on the things that are not seen rather than the things that are seen (Second Corinthians 4:16-18).

The Restoration of the Wife of the LORD
54: 1-17

As a result of the suffering Servant’s sacrifice on the cross, and Isra’el’s national confession of sin, this is a far eschatological prophecy pointing to Isra’el’s national regeneration at end of the Great Tribulation and return to the Land in peace and security during the Messianic Kingdom. This passage shows us the heart of the gospel of Messiah. ADONAI has reconciled His lost world to Himself. He has not waited for us to find a way to bridge the gap between Him and us, as He certainly could have in His own righteousness. After all, we are the ones who created the breach between Him and ourselves, so let us find a way across it. But of course, there is no way from our side. For God to wait in the lonely isolation of His moral perfection for us to come to Him would be to wait for all eternity. Our sinfulness makes it impossible to get ourselves to a place where we can stand before His blazing purity and survive because the soul who sins will die (Eze 18:4).

Yet, the amazing thing about ADONAI is that He gets no satisfaction from the richly deserved death of the sinner (Ezeki’el 18:32; 33:11). Some of the family members of the victims of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh were disappointed when they were prevented from seeing him die in June, 2001. They wanted that satisfaction. Not so with God. Not even the death of the most heinous criminal brings a grim smile of satisfaction to the face of God. Rather, there is grief in His heart like the grief of David who cried: O Absalom, my son, my son, over the death of his rebel son, who would have killed his father without a second thought.

So what did God do as an expression of His unfailing love, His everlasting kindness, and His covenant of peace with the nation of Isra’el? What did He do so the barren Jewish woman could be surrounded with laughing children, the Jewish widow could be married to the most wonderful husband in the world, and the rejected Jewish divorcee could know that the rejection was only for a moment while the acceptance was forever? Yeshua took all of her pride, all of her self-sufficiency, and all of her sin on His body on the cross. This is the true face of ADONAI – not the stern, cruel Judge dispassionately rehearsing the endless list of her crimes and our crimes, and in the end grimly giving out exactly what we have deserved. No, He will go to any lengths to see that she and we receive mercy. The Judge has taken the judgment.²²⁴

But even with this understanding, it is important to realize that there is a difference between Isra’el being the wife of the ADONAI, and the Church being the wife of Christ. Here is an outline of the relationship.

The first stage is the Marriage Contract, which is the book of Deuteronomy. It should not merely be looked upon as a duplication of the previous teaching of the five books of Moshe. Deuteronomy is God’s marriage covenant with Isra’el. It contains all the elements of an ancient marriage contract. After the initial marriage contract, which took place at Mount Sinai, Isra’el went through a lengthy second stage.

The second stage was one of spiritual adultery. Isra’el failed to keep her promise of faithfulness, which she committed herself to in the original Marriage Contract. That eventually led to the third stage.

The third stage was the separation that took place between Isra’el and God. It lasted about 100 years. Many Israelites were complaining that the LORD was withholding the material blessings He had promised in the marriage contract. Therefore, it looked to them as if God had divorced His wife. But ADONAI asks them in Chapter 50 to produce a bill of divorcement. But there was no bill of divorcement at this stage. The reason that material benefits had been withheld was because of Israel’s adultery, because the material benefits guaranteed in Deuteronomy were based on the condition of faithfulness.

The fourth stage of this relationship is the divorce itself. In Isaiah’s day there was no bill of divorce. But a century later when Jeremiah was a prophet, there was a bill of divorcement. In fact, the book of Jeremiah is that bill of divorcement, just like Deuteronomy is the marriage contract. The first four stages are all historical.

The fifth stage is the stage of punishment. Prophets like Jeremiah, Hosea, Ezeki’el, and to a small degree Isaiah, prophesied about this stage. Isra’el is undergoing a lengthy period of punishment because of the divorce. The dispersion is part of the punishment, and persecutions in the dispersion are also part of the punishment. Any time these prophets talk about the punishment of Isra’el, they keep emphasizing that the punishment is not for its own sake. There is a purpose to this punishment. The goal of the punishment is to bring Isra’el back to God. Someday there will be a sixth stage.

The sixth stage will be the remarriage. A new contract will be entered into, but this time it will be based upon the New Covenant (see the commentary on Jeremiah, to see link click Eo – The Days are Coming, declares the LORD, When I Will Make a New Covenant with the People of Isra’el). What we have in Chapter 54 is a discussion of the sixth stage. It is a far eschatological prophecy of the national regeneration in the last days of the Great Tribulation, and return to the Land in peace and security during the Messianic Kingdom.²²⁵

It is not unusual for Isaiah to alternate between different time periods. Normally he alternates between near historical and far eschatological prophecies. But here, Isaiah begins to alternate between far eschatological prophecies and prophecies about the Suffering Servant. The way you can distinguish between the two is the context.

A far eschatological prophecy about the final restoration of Zion (49:14-26)

How the Suffering Servant died (50:1-11)

A far eschatological prophecy of comfort to the last Jewish generation before the return of the Messiah at the end of the Great Tribulation (51:1 to 52:12)

Why the Suffering Servant died (52:13 to 53:12)

A far eschatological prophecy pointing to Israel’s national regeneration (54:1-17) and the offer of salvation to the Gentile nations during the Messianic Kingdom (55:1 to 56:8).

Yet It Was the LORD’s Will to Crush Him,
and Cause Him to Suffer
53: 10-12

Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush Him, and cause Him to suffer DIG: How is the Messiah’s life a guilt offering? How do you account for the paradox between the death of Jesus in 53:9 and His seeing the light of life in 53:11? 53:7, 10, and 12 use sacrificial imagery to speak of the Servant. How does that make His death more than a mere martyr’s death? How do you get into God’s family?

REFLECT: What is the doctrine of propitiation and what does it have to do with you? How are you justified before ADONAI? The identity of the Servant is no longer a mystery to the reader of this book. The only mystery is how the LORD could love us this much. How does that make you feel? How do you respond to such love? How do you get to heaven? Are you in the boat?

What we have in these verses is the theology of the Suffering Servant just before the Second Coming. What did the whole thing mean? We learn that His death was an offering for sin. Throughout 53:1-9 Jesus Christ seemed to be suffering at the hands of men, but now we learn that ADONAI was actually in control. We learn that it was the LORD’s will to crush Him and cause Him to suffer (53:10a). Why? It was His will to crush Him because through the suffering of the Servant, ADONAI made Messiah’s life a guilt offering (see my commentary on Exodus, to see link click Fd – The Guilt Offering), the most important offering of the Dispensation of the Torah. So Jesus died to become an offering for sin (53:10b).

And because He became a guilt offering by means of His death, there seems to be a contradiction in the minds of some. The Bible teaches us that He will see His offspring and prolong His days (53:10c). How can He see His seed if He dies? How can He prolong His days if He dies? The only way this is possible is by means of resurrection. His offspring are those who will benefit from His death by spiritual rebirth. If we believe in the substitutionary death of the Messiah for our sin, then we are born again spiritually through the Ruach ha-Kodesh. By that spiritual rebirth we become His offspring. And because He has been resurrected, and His days are prolonged, He sees His offspring. And the will of the LORD will prosper in His hand (53:10d). The Suffering Servant will not fail (49:1-4) because He accomplishes the very purpose that God the Father had intended despite opposition by Satan, the Jewish leaders, and the Roman leaders in the physical and spiritual realm. The result of His guilt offering is seen in the next verse.

After the suffering of His soul He will see the light of life and be satisfied; by His knowledge My righteous Servant will justify many, and He will bear their iniquities (53:11). Two important doctrines are seen here. First, is the doctrine of propitiation. After the suffering of His (Jesus’) soul (death), He (God the Father) will see the light of life (Yeshua’s resurrection) and be satisfied (53:11a). The doctrine of propitiation is the averting of the LORD’s wrath by means of the vicarious (substitutionary) and efficacious (producing the desired effect) sacrifice (death) of Jesus Christ (the atonement).

Propitiation is the death of Christ that satisfies every claim of God’s holiness and justice so that God is free to act on behalf of sinners. In Ephesians 2:8-9 Paul writes: For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – and not by works, so that no one can boast. Because if we could work our way to salvation, ADONAI knows that we would boast. No, it is faith in Jesus Christ that saves us from sin. Works that you do for God cannot save you from sin, because works do not, and cannot pay the penalty for sin. It is not what you do for the LORD that saves. It is what the LORD has done for you. Being a good, moral person cannot pay for sin. Going to church or messianic synagogue does not pay for sin. Only faith in Christ, who shed his blood and died on the cross, can pay for your sin. New Covenant faith consists of two elements. The first element of biblical faith is accepting something as true. In the case of Christ, it is believing (1) that Christ is the Son of God; (2) that Christ died for sin, and (3) that Christ arose from the dead. Do you believe these things are true? Good. The second element in biblical faith is for you to trust Messiah, depend on Messiah plus nothing for the forgiveness of your sins. Let me make this clear. We are saved by faith, that is, trusting Jesus Christ in His death on the cross to get us into heaven.

The atonement of Yeshua Messiah is a unique teaching when compared to other religions around the world. The LORD is Himself the atoner. Every other religion, without exception, teaches that salvation is by works.

ADONAI is going to be satisfied by the death of the Servant. The world says we are all born good and something terrible has to happen for us to end up bad. But the Bible says that we were born with a terminal disease called sin: For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23), and for us to end up righteous, something drastic (salvation) has to happen. As a result, we are all born into the family of Satan. There are only two families in the world, the family of God and the family of Satan. No one is born into the LORD’s family; everyone is adopted into it (see my commentary on The Life of Christ Bw – What God Does For Us at the Moment of Faith).

This is the last of five messages. But in the first message I talked about the lifeboat (see Iz – See, My Servant Will Act Wisely, He Will Be Lifted Up and Exalted). Well, biblical faith is getting in the lifeboat. Are you in yet? If so, that’s great. If not, would you like to accept Christ right now? If so, there is a prayer I would like you to repeat. But before you do I want you to remember that saying a prayer does not save you, trusting in Messiah does. Say these words: God, I admit that I have sinned. I believe Jesus Christ died for my sins, and I want to trust Him to save me right now. If you were to die right now, where would you go? That’s right, heaven. Why should God let you into heaven? That’s right, because Jesus died to pay for your sins.²²²

Jesus’ last words from the cross were: It is finished (John 19:30). That is the translation in Aramaic because that was the common language of His day. But the original Greek text reads, tetelestai, which means paid in full. This word is actually an accounting term. After the destruction of Herod’s Temple in AD 70, many Jews found their way to Alexandria, Egypt. There they had one of the greatest libraries of the ancient world by the second century. But by then, the international language was Greek. And while the Jews spoke Aramaic, they wrote in Greek, not Hebrew. Archaeologists have discovered an underground storage area there with thousands of clay accounting tablets. Across each one was written tetelestai. It is important for you to understand that your sins have been paid in full by the blood of Christ on the cross. All of your sin, past, present, and future. And as a result, you now possess eternal life (John 6:37-40; 10:27-30).

The second important doctrine is the doctrine of justification. The immediate result of salvation is justification. By His knowledge My righteous Servant will justify many (53:11b). To be justified in God’s sight means that we have a right standing before Him. It is an act where, negatively, He forgives your sins and, positively, He declares them righteous by imputing, or transferring, the obedience and righteousness of Messiah to you. With electronic banking today, if someone transferred a million dollars to your bank account, it would be imputed to your account. That’s what Christ does for us as He transfers His righteousness to our account at the moment of faith. We do not get to heaven on account of our own righteousness. Later, Isaiah will write that all our righteous acts are like filthy rags (64:6). We get to heaven on account of the righteousness of Christ. It is a one-time act of God at the moment of salvation. This is a pretty good trade, our sins for His righteousness.

And He will bear their iniquities (53:11c). How is mankind justified? By knowledge of the suffering Servant. There are two Hebrew words for knowledge. One is head knowledge, and one is experiential knowledge. The word here is experiential. By the experiential knowledge of the Servant will mankind by justified. When we believe that Yeshua is the Son of God who came to bear our iniquities (or sins), when we trust in what Jesus did in His suffering and death on our behalf, and then we can experientially know Him and are justified by His grace. And we are justified freely by His grace through redemption that came through Jesus Christ (Romans 3:24). And in Titus 3:7 Paul writes: So that having been justified by His grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. Therefore, justification is an utterly undeserved free gift of God’s grace. It is not by His mercy, but by His grace. Mercy is not getting something that you do deserve; but grace is getting something (like salvation and justification) that you do not deserve.

The doctrines of propitiation and justification are important for believers to understand because as soon as you are saved, Satan will try to convince you that you are not. But in reality, you are secure in Him (John 6:37-40, 10:27-30). If Messiah has fully satisfied all of God’s demands for justice at the cross, on what basis could He ever direct His wrath towards one who has placed faith in His Son? No! Sin, no matter how great, was fully paid for at the cross. When we understand this, it leads us to the conclusion that no sin will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:28-38).

The Bible teaches us that to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God – children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God (John 1:12-12). At that point his only hope is to make you an ineffective believer. Remember: The devil was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44). Stand firm and defeat him with Scripture like Jesus used when tempted by Satan after His baptism (Matthew 4:1-11; Mark 1:12-13; Luke 14:1-13).

Having willingly followed ADONAI’s plan, the Servant is rewarded. Therefore, I will give Him a portion among the great (53:12a). The word therefore is always significant. Always find out what the therefore is there for. Because of everything the Servant has done in 53:1-11, therefore, for that very reason, He will be given a portion among the great, or be greatly rewarded. Paul wrote in Philippians 2:9: Therefore, God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name.

In addition: He will divide the spoils with the strong (53:12b). When Christ returns during the messianic Kingdom, He will inherit and rule over the entire world. But does He rule alone? No, He co-reigns with Church Saints, the righteous of the TaNaKh, and Tribulation Saints. So with the strong and the great, He will divide the rulership of the messianic Kingdom, or co-reign with them because we are part of His seed we are heirs with Him of Kingdom promises, blessings, and authority.

What is the cause of the Servant’s exaltation? It is because He poured out His life unto death (53:12c). This is My blood of the Covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins (Matthew 26:28). The simple forcefulness of the statement seems designed to leave no doubt in your mind: it is the voluntary self-sacrifice of Jesus, whereby He was numbered with the transgressors (53:12d).

For He bore the sins of many, and made intercession for the transgressors (53:12e). Isaiah has spelled out on several occasions that the Servant of the LORD would suffer. The great burden of Chapter 53 has been to give us the reason why the Servant will suffer. Now Isaiah has finally given us the answer: He was going to suffer to pay for sin by way of substitution. And the concept of substitutionary sacrifice and death comes nine times in this section: (1) But He was pierced for our transgressions (53:5), (2) He was crushed for our sins (53:5), (3) The punishment that brought us peace was upon Him (53:5), (4) And by His wounds we are healed (53:5), (5) The LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all (53:6), (6) For He was cut off from the land of the living; for the crimes of My people, who deserved the punishment themselves (53:8 CJB), (7) God makes His life a guilt offering (53:10b), (8) He will bear their iniquities (53:11b), and (9) For He bore the sin of many (53:12e).

This great Chapter 53 of Isaiah gives a tremendously complete picture of what the death of Jesus Christ accomplished on the behalf of Isra’el (John 11:49-51), for the whole world (First John 2:2), and for you and me. His death satisfied God’s righteous demands for judgment against your sin and opened the way for you to come to the LORD in faith for salvation from your sins.²²³

He Was Oppressed and Afflicted,
Yet He Did Not Open His Mouth
53: 7-9

He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth DIG: If all you knew about the Servant’s adult life were summed up in these verses, what would you assume must have happened to Him? How does this relate to the picture of the Servant in 53:6? Why was this needed? Why did He go silently like a meek little lamb? What will He be like when He returns (see Revelation 5:5)? Why?

REFLECT: When was the last time you gave yourself sacrificially to others? What was the result? How did it affect you? Can you “hold your tongue” if you feel like you are suffering an injustice? How would your situation be different than the one we see here? How is it the same? When you read these Scriptures, how does it affect you personally? How has the Word of God changed your life?

In 53:1-9 we finish up with Isra’el’s national prayer and confession at the end of the Great Tribulation (see the commentary on Revelation, to see link click Ev – The Basis for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ). The actual words of this prayer are found in four key passages of Scripture, first, in Psalm 79, secondly in Psalm 80, thirdly here, and lastly in Isaiah 63:7 to 64:12. All tenses are prophetic perfects, or future events looked upon as already taken place. This is the fourth of five messages in this section.

Jesus was determined to fulfill His ministry on earth. As a child, God the Father had raised God the Son morning by morning and instructed Him concerning His purpose in coming to this earth (50:4). As Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men (Luke 2:52) He became more and more determined. Yeshua was confident that He would not be disgraced because God the Father would come to His aid. And He was so sure of this that, He set His face like a flint to the cross to suffer because He knew that He would not be put to shame. The reason He offered His back to those who beat Him, the reason He offered His cheeks to those who pulled out His beard, the reason He did not hide His face from mocking and spitting was because He recognized that the Father was with Him (50:7-8).

Isaiah takes up the sheep metaphor from 53:4-6, and uses it to underline the point being made throughout this national confession: the contrast between a sinful people and an innocent Servant. When we are compared to sheep, their ability to get lost is emphasized: We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way (53:6). But when the Messiah is compared to sheep, their non-defensive, submissive nature is emphasized. Both He and we may be compared to sheep, but two very different pictures emerge. The negative characteristics are seen in us, while the positive ones are seen in Him. Being human, He shares our nature (without sinning), but in Him it is transformed.

But He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth (53:7a). The construction of the sentence gives a sense of simultaneous action, He was oppressed as He humbled Himself. The word oppressed carries with it the idea of brutal physical punishment at the hand of others. ADONAI said: I have seen how My people are being oppressed in Egypt and heard their cry for release from their slave-masters, because I know their pain (Exodus 3:7; also see Isaiah 3:5 and 12, 58:3).

Yet, He did not open His mouth. Led like a Lamb, Seh Ha’Elohim, God’s Lamb (John 1:19, 29, 35) He went willingly to the slaughter (53:7b). Philip explained to an Ethiopian eunuch that the Lamb of Isaiah was not the prophet Isaiah, but was the Messiah (Acts 8:26-35). It was no accident that Isaiah used this metaphor because sheep were the primary animals of sacrifice. Seeing many sheep sheared for their wool or killed as sacrifices, the Jews were well aware of the submissive nature of sheep. Jesus did not try to stop those who opposed Him, but remained silent rather than defend Himself. Therefore, He was not a victim caught up in the circumstances of life, but a Person of dignity in even the most degrading of circumstances. One thinks of Jesus setting His face to go to Jerusalem where He understood the death that awaited Him (see Ir – Because the Sovereign LORD Helps Me, I Will Set My Face Like a Flint).

It is difficult to escape the conclusion that it is not accidental that sheep, the primary animals of sacrifice, are mentioned here. The lambs used for offerings in the Tabernacle and the Temple were without spot or blemish. They provided atonement for the sins of the people. Thank You, God, for sending Yeshua the Lamb, who took our sins on Himself so we could be forgiven.

And as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth (53:7c). All four Gospels point out that both at His religious and at His civil trial He suffered injustice in silence (Matthew 26:62-62 and 27:12-14; Mark 14:60-61 and 15:3-5; Luke 23:8-9 and John in 19:10). In addition to the fact that Jesus was sinless and had done nothing wrong, twenty-one laws of the Great Sanhedrin regarding trials were all broken when He was tried. They were so desperate to kill Him (Matthew 26:1-5; Mark 14:1-2; Luke 22:1-2; John 13:1) they would stop at nothing, even their own rules (see my commentary on The Life of Christ Lh – The Laws of the Great Sanhedrin Regarding Trials).

After two unjust trials, Jesus was sentenced to die (John 19:16). After forcible arrest and sentencing, He was taken away (53:8a CJB). While being scourged, He was temporarily in Pilate’s prison. After being scourged He went through the process of a trial. It was a judicial trial. After that He was taken away to be killed. Yet who of his generation protested (53:8b)? Christ’s generation had failed to recognize Him for who He was. But the faithful remnant at the end of the Tribulation is seen here as correcting that error.

For He was cut off from the land of the living (53:8c). The word speak, declare, or consider means thoughtful consideration to the fact that He was cut off from the land of the living. This means death. This term cut off is used extensively in the Torah. Over and over again violation of the Torah meant that you were cut off or killed. It is the same expression used here to mean that Jesus was to die a punitive sacrifice.

For the crimes of My people, who deserved the punishment themselves (53:8d CJB). Not that He was guilty of breaking the Torah, but for the transgression (or violation of specific law) of Isaiah’s people, Jesus was stricken. Now the wages of sin being death (Romans 6:23) is bad news, but there is good news.

But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). We were spiritually dead and unable to make the first move toward God because we inherited Adam’s sin nature that rebelled and separated us from Him. So God made the first move toward us by sending His one and only Son to die in our place for the payment for our sin. We stand before the Son of God, guilty of sin, and facing a death penalty. But Jesus, as judge (John 5:27), comes down from behind the seat of judgment, takes off His judicial robe and stands beside us. It is there that He says to us, “I will take your place. I will die for you.” And if you were the only person in the world, He still would have died for you. The penalty for sin is death, but Christ died and paid for sin so we do not have to go to hell.

Then the burial of the Servant is pictured. He was assigned a grave with the wicked and with the rich in His death (53:9a). The first two lines would be contradictory if we did not have New Covenant revelation. A person who died as a criminal by Jewish law could not be buried in the family plot. He had to be buried in a special criminal’s grave. Jesus died as a criminal and crucifixion was a criminal’s death. And since He died a criminal’s death, He was assigned a criminal’s grave. Although He was assigned a grave with the wicked, He will end up being buried in a rich man’s tomb (Matthew 27:57-60; Mark 15:42-46; Luke 23:50-54; and John 19:38-42). All these passages tell us that a rich man named Joseph of Arimathea requested His body and got it. So Jesus ended up being buried with the rich in His death, and not in a criminal’s grave to which He was assigned by the Jewish and Roman leaders of that day.

Though He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth (53:9b). But even though He had been treated as a common criminal He had done no violence. That means He was not guilty of any outward sin. In addition, nor was any deceit in His mouth. That means He had no inward sin. Isaiah says that God is going to twist history. The Suffering Servant was assigned a criminal’s grave, but He will be exalted by the Father.

Therefore, Isra’el’s national confession that Yeshua was indeed the Messiah is seen in the first nine verses of Chapter 53. The surviving remnant at the very end of the Great Tribulation will finally realize that Jesus was the Messiah and that He had died a substitutionary death on their behalf. There is only one thing that God will ask of them. And it is the same thing He asks of us – faith. Because without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:1).

Yet We Considered Him Punished,
Stricken and Afflicted by God
53: 4-6

Yet we considered Him punished, stricken and afflicted by God DIG: Who is saying these words? When are they saying them? Why? What was the purpose of the Servant’s Suffering? What was the nature of His suffering? What are the three specific requirements of the bread to qualify for the Passover? How does each point to the Messiah? Why was His suffering and death necessary? How could a loving God send people to hell? What are the wages of sin? How does this motivate you to reach people you know are lost?

REFLECT: When was the last time someone paid the price for something that you did? After reflecting on it, how did it make you feel? Did it change you in any way? When reflecting on Christ’s paying the price for your sins, how does it make you feel? What do you think? Was it really necessary? Did it change you in any way? Can you ever “repay” Messiah for what He has done for you? What, then, is the appropriate response?

In 53:1-9 we see Isra’el’s national prayer and confession at the end of the Great Tribulation. (see the commentary on Revelation, to see link click Ev – The Basis for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ). At that time every Jew still alive will declare that although they didn’t realize it beforehand, they now recognize that Jesus bore the consequences of their sin. This is the third of five messages in this section.

The Cone of Isaiah (see Hl – The Cone of Isaiah) has now come to the point: In fact, it was our diseases He bore, our pains from which He suffered (53:4a CJB). As they make this confession Isra’el recognizes that Yeshua really is the Messiah and His suffering was on their behalf. In other words, His suffering was substitutionary. He bore upon Himself their diseases and their pains. The word bore is the Hebrew word na-sah that, in the book of Leviticus, always has the sense of offering a sacrifice. So the Jews will start to understand that when He was bearing their suffering, it was done in the sense of offering up a sacrifice.

Even though this is Isra’el’s national confession of their sin of rejecting the Messiah, He died for us all. For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). What had Yeshua done to deserve such treatment? Look for a moment at the cross. God made Him an offering for sin. If you want to know how much the LORD hates sin, look to the cross. If you want to know if ADONAI will punish sin, look to Messiah, who bore the tortures of its penalty. How could we ever think that we could escape if we ignore such a great salvation (Hebrews 2:3a)? That cross became an altar where we see the Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world (John 1:29). He was dying for somebody else. He was dying for you and me.

Yet, we considered Him punished, stricken and afflicted by God (53:4b CJB). Stricken (nagua) is sometimes associated with the disease of leprosy (Leviticus 13:3, 9, 20; Second Kings 15:5), and is probably the basis that the Babylonian Talmud describes the Messiah as a leper (Sanhedrin 98a). But this is not always the case; in other places this term can illustrate any illness or disaster that takes place (Genesis 12:17; First Samuel 6:9). So at the end of the Great Tribulation, the Jews still alive had always believed that Jesus had been accursed for what He had done. But then, they will realize that it was they who deserved that fearful consequence.

To this very day Isra’el’s attitude has been yet we considered Him punished by God. When Jesus was suffering on the cross, as far as Isra’el was concerned, He deserved it. He was suffering for His own sins and received just punishment from ADONAI Himself. Another reference to Jesus in the Talmud is to call Him po-shea, the transgressor. As far as the Talmud is concerned, Jesus died because He was a transgressor. The word stricken is used for the most loathsome diseases (Genesis 12:17; Leviticus 13:3, 9, 20; 1 Samuel 6:9; 2 Kings 15:5). It always emphasizes being struck with the most shocking disease and is quoted in Matthew 8:17.

But, emphasizes the contrast between Jesus and us. He, and no other, was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our sins (53:5a). The pronoun He is emphatic, so as to bring the Servant sharply before us. The word pierced here means to be pierced through with a knife, sword, or spear. He was also crushed (especially through the scourging) for our sins. The fact that Yeshua was pierced was foreshadowed in the Feasts of Isra’el. At the Passover (Luke 22:14-20) the body of Christ is related to the unleavened bread. So when Jesus said: This is My body, He did not say it of wafers or other types of bread. He specifically said it of the Jewish unleavened bread.

There were three specific requirements of the bread to qualify for the Passover. The first requirement is that the bread had to be unleavened and leaven was the symbol for sin. Jesus had an unleavened body that was sinless. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (Second Corinthians 5:21). If Christ had committed only one sin, that would have disqualified Him from being the Passover sacrifice. But Yeshua was the only Jew who ever lived that kept the Torah perfectly and by His perfect keeping of the Torah He did have an unleavened body.

Secondly, the bread had to be striped. The body of Jesus was striped by means of the scourge (John 19:1). Isaiah 53:5 prophesied: by His stripes we are healed.

The third requirement is that it also had to be pierced. The body of Jesus was pierced at the crucifixion on two occasions, initially by the nails of His crucifixion (John 19:17-18) and then by the spear of a Roman soldier (John 19: 34 and 37). At the time of Israel’s national confession, Zechariah 12:10 prophesied that Messiah would say to the nation at the end of the Tribulation: They will look upon Me, the One they have pierced. Today if you go to the grocery store around the time of the Passover and you buy some unleavened bread, it will literally have stripes on it. And if you hold it up to a light, you can see through it because it is pierced. Therefore, His death was substitutionary.²¹⁸

The punishment that brought us peace was upon Him (53:5b). This kind of suffering was necessary to bring about spiritual peace for those who will believe. So the punishment that leads to peace was placed upon the Servant. Peace is defined as a condition of salvation brought about by healing. We were sick to death because of our sins; but He, the sinless one, took upon Himself a suffering unto death, which was, as it were, the concentration and essence of the woes that we deserved. This voluntary endurance, this substitution to the justice of the Holy One, in accordance with the counsels of divine love, became the source of our healing.²¹⁹

And by His wounds we are healed of our sins (53:5c). Messiah died for our spiritual healing, not our physical healing. Jesus did not bear our diseases by contracting them, but by exposing their root cause. When He saw the pain and suffering of sickness and death He understood that the root cause was sin. It was sin that He dealt with on the cross. He bore our sins in His body on the tree so that we might not die to sin and live for righteousness; by His wounds you have been healed (First Peter 2:24). Those who claim that believers should never be sick because there is healing in the atonement should also claim that believers should never die, because Yeshua also conquered death in the atonement. The central message of the Gospel is deliverance from sin. It is the good news about forgiveness, not health. Christ was made sin, not disease, and He died on the cross for our sin, not our sickness.²²⁰ In 53:4 we see His substitutionary suffering; in 55:5 we see His substitutionary death.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way. And this was no accident, the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all (53:6). The believing remnant will suddenly realize that they are guilty and that ADONAI made Messiah the object of His wrath in order to take away their guilt. Isaiah reinforces his point with a sheep metaphor that will be carried over into the next segment. Sheep are notoriously single-minded and at the same time unaware of their circumstances. Their minds are on the next clump of grass and not much else. Not only that, when frightened, they have a tendency to bolt off in any direction. As a result, they tend to get lost.²²¹ So, as far as Isra’el at the end of the Tribulation is concerned, they were the ones who had gone astray. Isaiah is speaking here through the inspiration of the Ruach, and says we all, meaning we Jews, have turned to our own way. The essence of sin is going one’s own way.

Their problem then is the same as our problem today. We have gone our own way, neglecting God’s Way (Acts 24:14). The Bible teaches us that there is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death (Proverbs 14:12). Although our Lord Yeshua said: I Am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me (John 14:6), each of us has turned to our own way.

How could a loving God send people to hell? That’s a commonly asked question. But the question itself reveals a couple of misconceptions. First, the LORD does not send people to hell. He merely honors their choice (Romans 1:21-25). Hell is the ultimate expression of ADONAI’s high regard for the dignity of mankind. He has never forced us to choose Him, even when it means that we would choose hell. Secondly, He doesn’t send people to hell. The word people is neutral, implying innocence. Nowhere in the Bible does it teach that innocent people are condemned to hell. Sinners are. The rebellious are. The self-centered are. So how could a loving God send people to hell? He doesn’t. He simply honors the choice of sinners (When Christ Comes, Max Lucado).

Therefore, Jesus took upon Himself the punishment and pain that we deserve to pay for our sins. These are our infirmities and our pains that He bore. But why was Christ’s death necessary? It was necessary because of our sin nature inherited from Adam (Genesis 3). Because ADONAI is a holy God, He cannot tolerate sin in His presence. Therefore, we are the LORD’s enemy and His only response can be wrath that brings death. The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23a). The wages of work is money, but the wages of sin is death. In other words, what I earn – the penalty, the punishment of sin – is death. Death is separation. The Bible speaks of two kinds of death, that is two kinds of separation. The first death is separation of the body and the soul. If I were to die right now my body would fall to the floor, but my soul, the real me, would go somewhere else. But the Bible speaks of another death, one it calls the second death. This second death is separation of the soul from God. Now, the penalty of sin is death, spiritual death, and separation from the LORD. To put it simply – hell. All this is really bad news. But there is good news.

Who Has Believed Our Message?
53: 1-3

Who has believed our message DIG: What did Yeshua’s physical appearance look like? If you had grown up next door to the Servant, how would you describe His childhood to a newspaper reporter who interviewed you about Him? How does that contrast with the LORD’s perspective of Him?

REFLECT: Is there someone that you have witnessed to that does not believe the message of Christ? How does that make you feel? How do you think it makes God feel? Have you ever had a time when your family in some regard rejected you? How did that make you feel? How do you think it makes Jesus feel?

One of the three purposes of the Great Tribulation is to break the stubbornness of the Jewish nation (Dani’el 11-12; Ezeki’el 20:34-38). It is through the crucible that Israel will be brought to repentance. In 53:1-9 we see Isra’el’s prayer and national confession at the end of the Great Tribulation (see the commentary on Revelation, to see link click Ev – The Basis for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ). The actual words of this prayer are found in four key passages of Scripture, first, in Psalm 79, secondly in Psalm 80, thirdly here, and lastly in Isaiah 63:7 to 64:12. All tenses are prophetic perfects, or future events looked upon as already taken place. This is the second of five messages in this section.

Who has believed our message (Isaiah 53:1; John 12:37-38; Romans 10:16a)? Here we see Isra’el’s unbelief. The word message here merely means hearing. Or, who among us has believed what we have heard? Isra’el has heard the message of the Suffering Servant for centuries and centuries. Every time a Jew is witnessed to, he or she hears the message. But for most of them, they do not believe. That is the question that the faithful remnant at the end of the Great Tribulation is asking. The point of the first part of this verse is that the Jews had heard the message of the Suffering Servant but had not believed it.

To whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed (53:1b)? Now He is going to go into great detail about who this arm of the LORD is going to be. Four times earlier Isaiah talked about this arm resulting in salvation for those who trust in the arm. What is this arm all about? Now he tells us that arm of the LORD is not God the Father, but God the Son. The Suffering Servant, who by means of His humiliation and suffering, will bring about salvation for Israel. This is the sixth of nine references to the arm of the LORD (30:30 and 32, 40:10, 50:2, 51:5 and 9, 52:10, 59:1 and 16, 62:8, 63:5). It was as if Isaiah was saying, “Who could have believed that this arm was the LORD Himself, come to save” (52:10).

He grew up before Him like a tender shoot. The Hebrew word for tender shoot really means suckling. A suckling sucks nourishment and life from the plant and eventually kills it. The plant would not be able to produce its fruit. In your garden you would pull off these sucklings so that your plants could live. That is how Isra’el considered the Servant, simply as a suckling to be broken off and thrown away. And like a root out of dry ground (53:2). Looking back to 11:1 we read: A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. This emphasized the humanity of Christ because although He would be a descendant of David, in all His kingly splendor, the emphasis here is not on David but on the lowly shepherd Jesse. In Chapter 11 we are told that when the Messiah comes, the House of David will be reduced to nothing but a stump. That is also the point here; He had humble beginnings.

In addition, He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him (53:2c). He was not characterized by outward physical beauty, or attractiveness. There was nothing about His outward appearance that would draw men and women to Him. The human eye is greatly influenced by superficial splendor. He looked nothing like a great world leader should look like. As a result, eyes would flicker across a crowd and would not even see Him. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him because His splendor is not on the surface (see the commentary on The Life of Christ Gb – Jesus Took Peter, James and John Up a High Mountain Where He was Transfigured), and those who have no inclination to look beyond the surface will never see Him, much less pay any attention to Him.²¹⁷

We learn that He was despised and rejected by men (53:3a). This is a part of the humiliation of the Suffering Servant. Of the different Hebrew words for men, the word used here is men of rank, or leaders. Although large crowds did initially follow Jesus, the leaders of Isra’el despised Him. That becomes very evident in the gospels. It was the Great Sanhedrin, the equivalent of the religious Jewish Supreme Court (see the commentary on The Life of Christ Lg – The Great Sanhedrin) that led the nation to the rejection of His messiahship and ultimate crucifixion. Before the Second Coming, the Jewish leadership will need to admit their sin and the sin of the nation in rejecting the Messiah for Him to come back.

Messiah was Ish Makh’ovot, a man of pains, well acquainted with illnesses (53:3b CJB). In other words, He was a man familiar with pain and disease because in His ministry, that is what He went about healing, pain and disease. The rabbis taught that disease or birth defects were a result of sin. Therefore, if a person was born blind, for example, they believed that person sinned in the womb. They took extraordinary measures to avoid any contact with anyone whom they considered sinners. When walking in a crowd, the Pharisees and Sadducees would actually hold their flowing robes tightly around them so they wouldn’t even accidently touch a sinner passing by. When the Pharisees were investigating such a case (see Gl – The Three Messianic Miracles), even the apostles asked Yeshua, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind” (John 9:2)? And the Pharisees also concluded: You were steeped in sin at birth (John 9:34a). So, the poor, the lame, and the diseased were shunned by the Jewish society in general as being sinners. But those were the very ones Jesus healed (35:5-6).

As a result, He was like one from whom the Jewish people hid their faces (53:3c). In 53:2 we were told that people were not attracted to Him because of His appearance. Now we also learn that not only were Jewish people not drawn to Him, but also people actually hid their faces from Him. He did not fit the stereotype of one who could save Himself, let alone anyone else. They were repulsed by what He had to say when the light of His truth revealed the extent of their sin.

Therefore, as a result of exposing the sin of the Jewish people, He was despised, and we esteemed Him not (53:3d). Yochanan wrote: He was in the world, and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him. He came to that which was His own (the Jewish people), but His own did not receive Him (John 1:10-11). And in Jewish circles that is still true today. For the majority of Isra’el, they have not esteemed Him. Here are three examples.

First, Jewish believers call Jesus Yeshua; but Jewish unbelievers have a shortened form, Yeshu. And Yeshu stands for the three letters that make up a line in Hebrew that reads: May His name and memory be blotted out. In Isra’el, for the most part, you won’t hear Yeshua; you’ll hear Yeshu. We esteemed Him not.

Secondly, throughout the Talmud, He is referred to as ta-louie, the hanged one. He is also referred to in the Talmud as ben-ponteria. Ben means son of, and ponteira sounds like Pandora, which is where we get the phrase Pandora’s box. She opened it up and all the evils of the world came out of the box. And as far as the Jewish world is concerned in the Talmud, Jesus is ben pondera, He’s the one who released all the evils on the Jewish people. We esteemed Him not.

Thirdly, the Greek word for the Gospel is eu-engellion. However, in Jewish writings they have a play on words with it, they say a-bon-gellion. But a-bon-gellion does not mean the gospel; it means the roll of sin. In other words, the gospel is not the Good News, it is the roll, or rolls (the Hebrew scriptures are read in the Synagogues from a roll or a scroll) of sin. We esteemed Him not. So in every respect this verse holds true to the Jewish people of today. But remember this is Isra’el’s prayer and national confession at the end of the Great Tribulation. They will confess that we esteemed Him not as the armies of the antichrist encircle them at Petra (or Bozrah). The spiritual scales will fall from their eyes and they will see Jesus for who He really is (Zechariah 12:7 to 13:1; Revelation 1:12-16, 5:5). At that time they will confess that they esteemed Him not.

If I asked you if you were a sinner, what would you say? Romans 3:23 says: For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. That includes you and me, doesn’t it? Most people feel that being good gets you into heaven and being bad keeps you out. That simply is not true; we all have sinned. What would you say sin is? I think we can agree that we are both sinners; now lets define sin. Some have said, “I’m not perfect,” or “I have made some mistakes.” But what do you think the Bible means by sin? Well, the Bible says that everyone who sins breaks God’s law; in fact, sin is lawlessness (First John 3:4). Have you ever disobeyed your parents? Have you ever misused the name of God? Have you ever told a lie? This is what sin is. It’s breaking God’s law. And any time you break a law there is a penalty. If you run a stop sign, the penalty is a fine. If you rob a bank, the penalty is jail. What is the penalty for breaking God’s law? We will find out in the next file.

See, My Servant Will Act Wisely,
He Will Be Lifted Up and Exalted
52: 13-15

See, My Servant will act wisely, He will be lifted up and exalted DIG: This is the last of the four Servant Songs (see 42:1-7; 49:1-13; 50:4-9). To whom is this song intended? In what sense is this the Gospel. The songs in Chapters 42 and 49 indicated that the Servant would be a light to the Gentiles. How is that idea communicated in these opening lines?

REFLECT: What is your opinion of the TaNaKh prophecies fulfilled by Jesus? Could they have been written after they had already occurred? Do they make any difference in what you believe? Do they increase your faith? Are you in the wheelbarrow? Why or why not?

This is a far eschatological prophecy to Jews just before the Second Coming. The purpose of the Servant is stated simply and clearly: For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life (John 3:16). One of the ways that we believe in the Servant is through knowledge of prophecy. Prophecy is history written in advance, and the TaNaKh gave precise details about the Servant of the LORD. Among other things, it predicted that He would be supernaturally conceived (7:14), born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), be Semitic in the line of Abraham and of David (Genesis 9:26, 22:18; Second Samuel 7:13), and be of the tribe of Judah (Genesis 49:10). In His death He would be executed by rulers (Psalm 2:1-2), forsaken by God (Psalm 22:1), betrayed by a friend for thirty pieces of silver (Psalm 41:9 and Zechariah 11:12), have His beard plucked out and be spit upon (50:6). In His resurrection He would rise in three days (Hosea 6:2), He would not experience decay of His flesh (Psalm 16:10), and would conquer death (25:8). All of these prophecies came true in the life of Yeshua. The probability of all of these prophecies being fulfilled while being given centuries in advance, leads us to the undeniable conclusion that Messiah was indeed sent from God the Father and He would accomplish His purpose. Our faith is based on the tangible evidence of the person and life of Christ; it is based on who He is and what He did (First Corinthians 15:3b-4).

In 52:13 Isaiah starts out with the word see. Whenever the prophets used that word it was always to call attention to a new context that is going to be more important than other writings within that chapter. Thus God, speaking through His prophet says: My Servant will act wisely. The Hebrew word could mean that, but I think a better translation would be My Servant will accomplish My purpose. Isaiah is not saying here that the Servant will be a wise man. But he is saying that the Servant will know and do the right things in order to accomplish the purpose for which He was called (42:1; 49:2-3; 50:7-9). Whatever the frustrations on His part (49:1-4), or the failure on the part of the nation of Isra’el to see Him for who He really was, the Servant will accomplish the Father’s purpose. This very same word is used in Jeremiah 23:5 where he writes: The days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch, a King who will accomplish My purpose (or reign wisely), and do what is just and right in the Land. Here Isaiah is picturing the Messiah sitting upon David’s throne and ruling over the Messianic Kingdom.

The next three phrases in 52:13 give us a summary of His activities during the messianic Kingdom. First: He will be raised up, referring to His resurrection. Secondly: He will be lifted up and this refers to His ascension that took place forty days after the resurrection (see my commentary on The Life of Christ, to see link click Mr – The Ascension of Jesus) Thirdly: He will be highly exalted or honored by being seated at the right hand of God the Father interceding for us day and night. But the Servant would not only be raised and lifted up and highly exalted, He would also be humiliated. We can see these two opposite extremes in these three verses without a break. Paul’s great hymn in Philippians 2:5-9 is almost certainly a reflection of this passage. So the exaltation of the Servant here is contrasted with the humiliation of the Servant in the very next verse.

The way Jesus looked on the cross will be in stark contrast with His appearance at the Second Coming. The nations, the many who were appalled at Him, will be speechless by what they see in Him, something they were not expecting. He will be so disfigured that He will not resemble a man. So as people looked upon the cross in the closing hours and minutes of His life, His form would be marred beyond human likeness (52:14). Evidently His beating was so severe, that after the resurrection, no one recognized Him at first. But even before the resurrection, by human standards Jesus was not attractive when He was on the earth (53:3).

Author Henri Nouwen tells the story of a family he knew in Paraguay. The father, a doctor, spoke out against the military regime there and its human rights abuses. Local police took their revenge on him by arresting his teenage son and torturing him to death. Enraged townsfolk wanted to turn the boy’s funeral into a huge protest march, but the doctor chose another means of protest. At the funeral, the father displayed his son’s body as he had found it in the jail – naked, scarred from electric shocks, cigarette burns, and beatings. All the villagers filed past the corpse, which lay not in a coffin but on the blood-soaked mattress from the prison. It was the strongest protest imaginable, for it put injustice on grotesque display. isn’t that what the Lord did at Calvary? The cross that held Jesus’ body, naked and marked with scars, exposed all the violence and injustice of this world. At once, the cross revealed what kind of world we have and what kind of God we have: a world of gross unfairness, a God of sacrificial love.

But when the nations see Him at His Second Coming, those who did not consider Him important will be absolutely astounded. They will see Him from a new perspective.²¹⁵ His eyes are like blazing fire, and on His head are many crowns. He has a name written on Him that no one knows but He Himself. He is dressed in a robe dripped in blood, and His name is the Word of God. Out of His mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of ADONAI, God of heaven’s angelic armies (CJB). On His robe and on His thigh He has this name written: KING of kings and LORD of Lords (Revelation 19:12-16).

In 52:15 the victory of the Servant will startle many nations. The word sprinkle, used by some translations, is not a good translation; a better word would be startle. The people, who were once astonished by His disfigurement, will now be startled at His exaltation. To go from the humiliation of the death of a common criminal to being exalted in all the earth and the heavens is indeed startling. The kings of the earth will shut their mouths because of Him out of respect. When you are talking and a man of greatness comes by, there is silence in the room out of respect. Why? For what they were not told, they will see. They will understand what they were not told about the inhuman treatment that the Messiah went through at His crucifixion. This verse is quoted in Romans 15:21: Those who were not told about Him will see, and those who have not heard will understand.

For the Servant, Yeshua, to accomplish His purpose, faith is needed. The writer to the Hebrews said: and without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him (Hebrews 11:6). Therefore, if there is anything that is clear in the Bible, it is that a person is saved by faith. However, if there is anything that is unclear today, it is the nature of faith. So it is vitally important that we understand faith. The Greek New Covenant word for faith most commonly used is pisteuo. It has a wide semantic range and can be translated faith, trust, or belief. This Greek word has two basic elements: mental assent and reliance. But these two elements also assume knowledge. Thus, faith consists of knowledge, mental assent, and reliance.

Faith, trust, and belief assumes knowledge, that is, recognition of some information. Before we can believe anything, we must know about it. If faith assumes the understanding of knowledge, what does a person need to know? The object of faith in the New Covenant is Yeshua Messiah. If you were to look up all the occurrences of believe and faith in the New Covenant to see what a person must know about Christ, you would discover that a person must believe four things: (1) that Messiah is God (John 20:31) and yet (2) a real man (First John 4:2); (3) that He is the one who died for sins (Romans 3:25) and (4) rose from the dead (Romans 10:9). Those last two facts are called the Gospel. So the object of faith is Jesus Christ, the God-man, who died and arose. It is not just any “Christ.” The object of faith must be Messiah who is revealed in the Bible.

The second element of faith is mental assent. The knowledge received about Messiah must now be accepted as true. The most basic meaning of pisteuo is to accept something as true. A person could have knowledge and not accept the information as true. In other words, he or she could not believe. However, if there is both knowledge and acceptance, there is belief. For salvation, a person must know that Jesus Christ, the God-man, died for sin and arose from the dead, and accept that as factual and true. Faith does not mean believing when there is no evidence; faith is believing the evidence. Faith is not built on ignorance, but on knowledge.

The third element is trust, belief, and faith. These words refer to resting in, relying on, or depending upon something or someone. Often the New Covenant emphasizes this and makes it even stronger by adding a preposition after believe. For example John 3:36 says: He who believes in the Son has everlasting life, and Acts 16:31 says: Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. You may believe a bridge is safe, but you do not believe in the Biblical sense until you drive onto the bridge. You may believe an airplane can fly you from your hometown to England, but you do not believe in the New Covenant sense until you buckle up and the plane takes off. If your clothes were on fire, you may believe that jumping in the swimming pool will save you, but you are not saved until you jump in the pool. That’s what faith is like, acceptance plus reliance. Faith in and of itself does not save. Faith is not magic; there is no saving virtue in it. Faith is merely the means by which the benefits of Christ’s death are applied to you. The New Covenant does not teach that you are saved on account of faith, but rather, you are saved through faith. The saving power does not reside in the act of faith, nor in the nature of faith, but exclusively in the object of faith – Jesus Christ.

Imagine a ship filled with people crossing the Atlantic. In the middle of the ocean there is an explosion. The ship is severely damaged and slowly sinking. Most are dead, and the rest are rushing for the lifeboats. Now suppose one man doesn’t know about the lifeboat, so he does not get aboard. He doesn’t have knowledge, so he is not saved. Suppose another man knows about the lifeboat and believes it will save him, but he is grief-stricken over seeing his wife killed, so he chooses not to get aboard and dies with his wife. He has knowledge and mental assent, but he is not saved. Others believe the lifeboat will save them, and they get into the boat. They are saved by faith, that is, they have knowledge, mental assent, and trust. However, it is not their faith that saves them, no matter how much faith they have. It is the lifeboat. Therefore, saving faith trusts Christ, and Messiah saves.²¹⁶  You are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Messiah alone.

Around 1900, before the days of rock stars and sports heroes, some of the most famous people were known for daring feats, like climbing mountains, escaping from chains and vaults, and swinging on the flying trapeze. None was more famous than the great Charles Blondin of France, the greatest tightrope walker in the world. One time he walked the tight rope across Niagara Falls in Ontario, Canada. He would walk across with a balance bar, he would ride across on a unicycle, and sometimes, with someone with a lot of faith in him, he would carry a trusting soul across on his shoulders. One day he wheeled a woman across in a wheelbarrow. Everyone saw it and cheered. The woman put her life into Blondin’s hands. That is what faith is, putting our life in Christ’s hands. When Blondin got to the other side of Niagara Falls, he asked the crowd if they believed he could do it again and go back across. They said, “Yes, we believe you can do it.” At that he said, “Then get in the wheelbarrow.” That is faith. As far as Christ is concerned, are you in the wheelbarrow?

If you have accepted Yeshua Messiah by faith, see my commentary on The Life of Christ Bw – What God does for Us at the Moment of Faith.

This is the first of five messages in this section, My Servant will accomplish His purpose, where God contrasts the Servant’s lowly death on the cross with His being lifted up and given a name that is above every name (Philippians 2:8-9). But having mentioned His humiliation, Isaiah will now detail it in the next section.

The Death of the Suffering Servant
52:13 to 53:12

When you or I try to do something, whether it’s for the Kingdom of God or not, we are fortunate if we can accomplish just one thing! But when God does something, there is a kaleidoscope of benefits. The Scriptures we have before us are examples of this. When the inspired prophet penned these words, he was writing for multiple audiences. Obviously, every believer in every age benefits from the Gospel of Yeshua Messiah.

Viewed from the Servant’s sacrifice on the cross, the First Covenant looks forward and the New Covenant looks back. These scriptures do the same for two different generations of Jews. First, this was a near historical prophecy to the Jews of Jesus’ day. When Yeshua began His public ministry and performed many signs and wonders (to see link click Gl – The Three Messianic Miracles), the Jews of His day were compelled to make a decision about Him and His claims of messiahship. So, when Isaiah wrote about the Suffering Servant, it should have prepared the hearts and minds of faithful Jews looking forward to the cross. Secondly, this is a far eschatological prophecy pointing to just prior to the Second Coming. Isaiah’s message of the Servant should cause them to look back to the cross and believe that Yeshua really was the Messiah and cry out for Him to return and save them (see the commentary on Revelation Ev – The Basis for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ).

This is the climax of the entire book of Isaiah and the fourth of his four Servant Songs (42:1-17, 49:1-6, 50:4-9). Here the prophet tells us why the Servant of the LORD is suffering and how Isra’el will be redeemed. The reason I take so much time to explain the different interpretations is because salvation is lost without a proper understanding that it is Jesus’ death on the cross we are talking about. There have been many claims of Jewish messiahship down through the centuries. For example Menahem ben Judah (around 70 AD), Simon bar Kokhba (around 130 AD), Moses of Crete (about 440-470 AD), Sabbatai Zevi (1626-1676 AD), Abraham Miguel Cardoso (1630-1706 AD), and the more recent Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902-1994 AD) have all claimed to be the promised Messiah. But all have violated what the prophet Zechariah had to say: Many Gentile nations will be joined with ADONAI in that day and will become My people. I will live among you and you will know that the LORD of heaven’s angelic armies (CJB) has sent Me to you (Zechariah 2:11b). No Gentiles followed any of these false messiahs.

Nevertheless, many Jewish commentators have come up with different interpretations to the identity of the Suffering Servant. Some say he is Moses, some say king Josiah, but most interpret the passage symbolically and say the Servant is Isra’el in exile. Others, like Jacob Joseph Mordecai try a more literal approach. His interpretation is very logical and makes perfect sense. He himself says that Scripture never bears any other than the simple and literal meaning. But without the mind of Christ (First Corinthians 2:16), it is clear that there is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end leads to death (Proverbs 14:1-13). Jacob Joseph Mordecai said that the Suffering Servant is King Hezekiah.²¹²

52:13a Behold my Servant shall prosper, as it is said in 2 Chronicles 32:30, And Hezekiah prospered in all his works, therefore, Hezekiah is rightly called God’s servant, for he not only turned himself, but also brought back Judah, and a great part of Isra’el as well, to the service of God – an achievement which none of his ancestors, in spite of all their excellent intentions, ever contemplated. For he put away the high places, and sent runners throughout all Isra’el and Judah with the letters from the king and his leaders, and spoke according to the commandment of the king: Children of Israel, return to ADONAI the God of Abraham (2 Chronicles 30:6). He restored the crown to its former state, entreating the favor of his princes and ministers, almost prostrating himself before them, while he said: Hear me, Levites! Now sanctify yourselves, sanctify the house of ADONAI the God of your fathers, and carry out the rubbish from the holy place (2 Chronicles 29:5).

52:13b He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high, for so it said in Second Chronicles 32:23: And many brought gifts to the Lord at Jerusalem, and presents to Hezekiah king of Judah, so that he was exalted in the sight of all nations thereafter.

52:14 Because of the dangerous illness that attacked him, his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness as he drew near to the gates of Death (Psalm 107:18).

52:15a Many kings and princes were amazed exceedingly at the miracle wrought for him, for not with sword or spear did ADONAI save His anointed from the hand of Sennacherib.

52:15b but greater far was the miracle which displayed itself in the world when the orbit of the sun turned backward before the eyes of all, and when Merodach-Baladan sent ambassadors to him to enquire about the portent which had occurred in the earth; this is what is meant by the words: What had not been told to them they have seen; for they perceived clearly that so highly favored was he in the eyes of the LORD, that the order of creation was altered for his benefit.

53:1 Who has believed our message? Feigning surprise, asks the prophet of his pious contemporaries; for good Hezekiah was a descendant of the wicked Ahaz, and upon Hezekiah was the arm of ADONAI revealed in the destruction of Sennacherib.

53:2 At the time when all were immersed in idolatrous worship, Hezekiah grew up before Him like a tender shoot, out of dry ground, in which was no religion or fear of God.

53:3 As, from his birth upwards, Hezekiah rejected the deeds of his fathers, and the shameful customs of his age, the people abominated him, and held aloof from him, and hence he was despised and rejected by men, his father in particular hating him even to the day of his death, for he made him pass through the fire of Molech (Second Kings 16:3 and Sanhedrin, fol. 69), though he was delivered miraculously by God. Still, however, the few righteous who were to be found at that time felt a longing and desire for him saying: O that the shoot were to come up from the stump of Jesse (Isaiah 11:1) and that the Spirit of knowledge and fear of ADONAI were resting on him (Isaiah 11:2),” and this is the meaning of the words: He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him (Isaiah 53:2), yet we desired him. When, after his father’s death, he ascended to the throne, his servants were so much dissatisfied that, with Shebna at their head, they rebelled against him, and sought to submit themselves to the wicked Pekah, son of Remaliah, king of Isra’el, as Isaiah narrates in 53:6 and when they saw him afflicted with severe illness, their hatred carried itself still further, and they poured contempt upon their prince, judging maliciously that his sufferings were because he had despised their own wicked faith, and that the graven images of their gods would hide their faces from him.

53:4 They did so even more when they saw that his affliction prevented him from maintaining the style and manners of a court (Sanhedrin, fol. 94), for he would eat only a pound of meat a day: since, then, he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, with a whole heart, just as his father David had done (Second Chronicles 29:2), and removed all defilement from the sanctuary (Second Chronicles 29:5) and restored all Isra’el to the true faith, the sufferings which he endured must have been for the sake of his generation; almost, indeed, had the Almighty determined to quench the coal that was left, and to give Jerusalem to the hand of Sennacherib, and only in consequence of Hezekiah was the redemption of their soul achieved, and deliverance wrought for them by his transcendent merits, so far surpassing the sufferings which he bare.

53:5-6 After this, however, all perceived that he was pierced for their transgressions, and crushed for their iniquities, in order to make atonement for them unto God; for the attribute of judgment, displaying itself before them, laid on him the iniquity of them all, as the text says, for the transgressions of My people (Isaiah 53:8), even the wounds which should have fallen upon them.

53:7 When his sickness was at its worst, he acknowledged the justice of God’s judgment upon him, but like a mute man who did not open his mouth, he expected from hour to hour the moment of his death, as he declared himself in his writing (Isaiah 38:9): I said in the cutting off of my days, let me go through the gates of death, etc, and accepted his afflictions as sent upon him in love, without murmuring, or complaining of the shortness of his days.

53:8 When, however, he heard the prophet Isaiah’s command: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover (Isaiah 38:1), he entreated God to grant him a longer life in order that he might be enabled to serve Him; by oppression and judgment he would have been taken away in the prime of his life and when his reign had but lately commenced: now, if his death had occurred before he had time to restore the faith of his people to its pristine integrity, who would have told of his generation?

53:9 It would have been rather a generation departing in darkness until it was all consumed without having seen the mighty acts of ADONAI, wrought by him on behalf of himself after him, but would have been buried with his wicked father – as the text states: He was assigned a grave with the wicked, implying that it was so determined – in spite of the innocence of his hands, and the fact that he had done no violence.

53:10 Yet, it was ADONAI’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and to put the guilt of his generation on his soul; accordingly, after his prayer, when God had heard his prayers and seen his tears, the promise is given that He will see his offspring and prolong his days; thus the Almighty added to his life fifteen years, and let him “see seed”, for previously he had no children.

53:12 Therefore, I will give him a portion among the great and he will divide the spoils, or the spoils of Sennacherib, because he bore the iniquities of the age, and was counted as a transgressor, and above all interceded for the remnant that were still left (who were the transgressors), as it is said in Second Kings 19:15: And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord, “ADONAI, God of Isra’el, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth,” and in Second Chronicles 32:20, “King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah son of Amos cried out in prayer to heaven.” This, then, is the meaning of made intercession for the transgressors, in order that the City might not fall into the hands of the King of Assyria. And so, when all Judah and Jerusalem and the remnant of Isra’el returned to the services of ADONAI, and the sanctuary was restored to its original purity, and the priests to their ministrations, and the Levites to their pulpits (all which Ahaz had neglected), and when they beheld the miracles, then all his servants began to love and honor him; and when he died, he was not assigned a grave with the wicked, as had been determined, and as nearly took place, but he ended his life honorably and Hezekiah rested with his fathers and was buried on the hill where the tombs of David’s descendants are. All Judah and the people of Jerusalem honored him when he died (Second Chronicles 32:33).

Such is the interpretation, which I have been able to give of these verses. And if my view is not in accordance with the mind of the prophet, I pray the Almighty to grant me a reward for what I have done! May the ADONAI lighten mine eyes in His Torah! And may the purpose of mine heart be well pleasing to Him! This is one rabbinic interpretation of Chapter 53, that the suffering servant was Hezekiah. But there is another even more accepted interpretation that Isra’el herself is the Servant of ADONAI.

Rabbi Isaac Orobio de Castro, around the time of the Spanish Inquisition in 1492, interpreted Chapter 53 as referring to Isra’el. The victims of the Inquisition “were mostly Jews who had been ‘converted’ to Catholicism under duress from King Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, and who were now accused of ‘Judaizing.’ Isabella decreed that all Jews must either accept baptism or leave Spain. Most refused to be baptized, even though it meant exile and the loss of most of their possessions. It seems that approximately 200,000 Spaniards of the Jewish faith were thus condemned to exile – which many times led to death, capture by pirates, and other such misfortunes.”²¹³ About 30,000 were killed in the 350 years of the Spanish Inquisition.

Down through Jewish history this is the most common interpretation of Chapter 53. (It would be helpful to understand in interpreting Rabbi de Castro’s writings, that many times he substitutes Jacob, or Isra’el, for the personal pronouns he or his). In his writings entitled The Clear Fountain, he states that Isaiah has also prophesied in the Fifty-Third Chapter about the opinions of the Christians (Edom), the oppressors of Isra’el. They falsely apply the prophecy beginning Who has believed our message? to the martyrdom of Jesus, but it really refers to Isra’el, stricken by all nations, past and present, from the Babylonians, Persians, Greeks and Romans, which later became the Christians. This is to be seen clearly from the Fifty-Second Chapter, which is connected with the following one. The error of the Christian doctrine is the consequences of their taking the expression my servant (52:13), as a real singular, whereas it is a collective singular, referring to Jacob and Isra’el. God said by the mouth of His prophet Moses that he would bring the curses which Isra’el suffered in the land of their enemies and haters on the Christians when Isra’el turns back from his (Isra’el’s) wicked ways (Deuteronomy 30:1-3). Isaiah prophesies the same (51:22-23), and promises redemption to the humiliated people, saying: Behold, My servant Jacob and My people Isra’el, who laid down his (Jacob’s) body as a pavement for the passers by, he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted. The prophet means to indicate by these three degrees of exaltation that the height of the trodden Isra’el will be greater than its abasement was low in the past and present days, for God shall have taken away from them the cup of the dregs and of His fury, and put it into the hands of His oppressors (51:22-23). And the nations will see such a wonderful redemption of a people so abased; the prophet says: as there were many who were appalled at him (14a). It may be seen how this designation my servant is a collective singular, because it says: For what they were not told, they will see, and what they have not heard, they will understand (52:15b), they in the plural refers to Isra’el.

53:1 Then, astonished, they (the Gentiles) will say: Who has believed our message? which we have heard from the (twelve) men (the apostles) believing in our peace, or our Messiah, the messenger of God to the nations. Persuaded by the twelve men (the apostles), we Edomites (here he is equating Christians to the Edomites who were constantly trying to destroy the Jews) want to destroy Isra’el and the Torah, but now to whom has the arm of ADONAI been revealed?

53:2 The Christian expositors apply the contents of this verse to Jesus, who was conceived without intercourse with man. This idea, however (as we shall prove by the help of God), is an astonishing blasphemy. Dani’el 12:10 says: Many will be purified, made spotless and refined, but the wicked will continue to be wicked. None of the wicked will understand, but those who are wise will understand. The prophet Isaiah speaks here also of Isra’el abased, humiliated, avoided, martyred, and spoiled by all nations, growing up before the providence of God like a branch and a root out of a dry land in consequence of their sins (Jeremiah 17:5-8). The prophet uses the expression roots in a dry land to explain the present exile and humiliation of His people. In the future, when God shall pour out waters upon these roots in dry ground and His blessing upon His children, then for what they were not told, they will see, and what they have not heard, they will understand. Who has then believed our message and to whom has the arm of ADONAI been revealed (Isaiah 52:15b to 53:1)? Dispersed Isra’el is called roots in a dry land as compared with other nations who have a king and possess a country. Micah also compares the providence of God to grass and drops falling upon it in time of drought (Micah 5:7), by which providence Isra’el was preserved among all other nations more wondrously than in Egypt. Where are now the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and the Persians, with their different religions? They were mixed up in the time of drought with other nations, and disappeared. Jeremiah 30:11 and Hosea 2:3 and 3:4, all allude to the above-mentioned period of drought. Isaiah continues: He has no form, for he (Jacob) grows in the present exile as a root in a dry land.

53:3 Despised and rejected by men, as was always the case with scattered Isra’el. As hiding their faces from the despised one. And we esteemed Jacob not, the nations will say. Who would have believed that the arm of ADONAI would reveal itself to a nation despised and rejected of men? which covered its face, from which everybody kept aloof, as from a wounded man, and which is familiar with suffering, in other words, with being despised and humiliated by all nations, past and present. The fame of this wonderful redemption will even reach Cush (43:1-3).

53:4 The sufferings which we ought to have born, as evildoers are described by our teachers (Obadiah 1-2), Isra’el bore, which is even the case in our days. When Isra’el suffers humiliation, death, and destruction for supporting the holy law, the Gentile nations support blasphemies. Yet, we considered Jacob stricken by God, smitten by Him and afflicted. This the Gentile nations repeat even in our own days, saying that Isra’el is smitten by God because they put to death their God and Messiah and did not believe in Him, but finally they will say: Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of ADONAI been revealed? This same was the case in Egypt, when the magicians said: This is the finger of God (Exodus 8:19), while later they were obliged to confess that God was fighting for Isra’el.

53:5 We were mistaken in believing that God disciplined Jacob for his sins, since in reality it was our sins, which caused his humiliation. Those who hold to this view believe that Isra’el spiritually heals herself by the suffering she endures. Isra’el does not need a Savior because she saves herself. Indeed in his interpretations de Castro replaces Jesus with Isra’el. And they said Jesus was blasphemous. In fact, the cup of trembling and of fury, which was destined for him according to the word of God, was put into our hands (51:22). The punishment that we deserved for the Messiah to come (they don’t believe the Messiah has yet come, so when the antichrist comes, they will believe it is he whom they have waited for so long), who is called our peace (9:6), and at whose coming universal peace ought to have been established, came upon Isra’el. He is saying that if Jesus had really been the Messiah, universal peace would have been established. By his stripes we are healed. In other words, Jacob (the Jews) was (have been) healed by the stripes that he received from us (the Jews). Thus the prophet says further on in Isaiah 53:10: Yet, it was ADONAI’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer. Even if we were to concede what the Christians say, and interpret this verse: By the Messiah’s stripes we were healed, then the Gentile nations would have to admit in amazement that when Isra’el drinks from the cup of trembling and fury, Jacob is healed. For the rod and the staff with which God chastises His people are necessary during the time of their chastising (10:6-7). In fact, Israel suffers oppression from the Christians who are healed by those very sufferings. The prophet explains this fact in 10:12, where Assyria represents Israel’s enemy, and reference to his allusion is made in Psalm 91:1,12 and 14.

53:6 We all like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way. At the beginning there were Arians and Catholics, now there are Calvinists and Lutherans, so that everybody turns to his own way (Jeremiah 49:7). Then the nations, amazed at such a great salvation, will exclaim: ADONAI has laid on Jacob the iniquity of us all. Isaiah alludes to those sects, saying: Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts is the land darkened (9:19). In other words, the prophet calls these different sects darkness. For it is in darkness that everyone has turned to his own way, and the same is true when people are blind in understanding.

53:7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter. (de Castro writes in 1492 that) This is the case now with the Spanish Inquisition, when Isra’el is brought to the funeral pile, and if they try to speak, a gag is put on their tongue.

53:8 By oppression and judgment he is taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? Oppression is employed by the prophets in a good and bad sense. In a good sense of the last days of the Passover (Amos 5:22), and in a bad sense of mourning (Joel 1:13). Here we take it in the latter sense; in other words, the nations, amazed at the great redemption, will say: Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of ADONAI been revealed? that Isra’el will be brought by us in chariots to the house of God, and taken away from their state of depression and the judgment, which God had pronounced against them in the day of His wrath (Isaiah 17:7; Zechariah 8:22; Isaiah 49:7 and Jeremiah 16:19). Thus the prophet continues his generation. In the former redemptions Isra’el was counted by tribes and families, but in the present redemption God alone will be able to count and distinguish the families. In other words, God will not choose His priests and Levites from the other nations, but He will distinguish and choose them from Isra’el alone. He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. In other words, for the transgression of the fathers the children suffer at the present time (Lamentations 5:7). To him is a collective singular, referring to Isra’el, and not to the Messiah of the nations.

53:9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked. God chose Isra’el, who died for the Torah and the holy name of God, and who are rich, in other words, who possess many virtues, but they make their grave among the wicked (Dani’el 11:32-34), because they are buried among the Gentile nations. And all that, says the prophet, because he had not acted falsely in regard to the commandments of God, for which Isra’el always was and is now reprimanded, and there was no deceit in their mouth. They (the Jews) always considered Jesus as someone who mislead Isra’el and consequently subject to capital punishment, according to Deuteronomy 13:7-10, which says: If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly misleads you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods that neither you nor your fathers have known, gods of the people around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), do not yield to him or listen to him. Show him not pity. Do not spare him or shield him. You must certainly put him to death. Stone him to death, because he tried to turn you away from ADONAI your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and no one among you will do such an evil thing again. The nations, on seeing the redemption of those (Jews) whom they (the Gentiles) called heretics and evildoers, but who are rich in great virtues, will exclaim: Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

53:10 If, preserved in the Torah of God, Jacob (the Jews) accepts patiently the chastisement as a correction for his (their) sins, he (they) will see his (their) offspring and prolong his (their) days.

53:11 After the suffering of his soul, Jacob (the Jews) will say to himself (themselves), drink the cup of trembling, bow down that they (the Gentiles) may walk over you (51:22-23). By his knowledge will my righteous servant Isra’el justify many, on seeing the great redemption of the Gentile world the justified ones (the Gentiles) will confess, surely Jacob (the Jews) has (have) borne the griefs which we (the Gentiles) deserved (Jeremiah 16:19-20). The sages teach that these passages prove clearly that Isra’el will be justified by their martyrdom, but not by that of the predicted Messiah.

53:12 Therefore, I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong. King David instituted a Torah (First Samuel 30:24), to which the spoil was equally divided amongst those who were the victors and those who guarded the town. The prophet says accordingly that those who fight for the Torah of God and die for it have the same part of the reward as those whose souls fight against the body for the sake of the Torah. Therefore, God will divide the spoil with many and the strong who guarded the city, or the Torah of God; for the martyred people (the Jews) poured out his (their) life unto death and was (were) numbered with the transgressors (the Gentiles).

And it wasn’t like the Rabbis were ignorant of Christian theology. They knew exactly what they were rejecting. Another Rabbi writes: Christianity has formed out of the Fifty-Third Chapter of Isaiah its principal argument for providing the truth of the gospel history; for as this contains nothing more than the life, passion, and death of Him whom they adore as very God and Messiah, and they find the same portrayed in this chapter in such vivid colors that its expositors call it the passion chapter, and Isaiah, the evangelical prophet, they make use of it as a convenient proof that Isaiah predicted by divine inspiration all that is related in the gospel, and that the Messiah was to die and suffer for the sins of mankind; that in this the redemption God had promised the people of Isra’el so many ages before would consist; that this people will acknowledge this truth in the latter days, and being converted to the Christian faith will confess how unjustly it punished and put to death the Messiah innocent of all sin, and that Isra’el will wonder at the glorious end of Him whom it had before executed on the charge of high treason against God (in other words, Christians saying that this is what the Jews will ultimately believe) . . In order to be able to apply the Fifty-Third Chapter of Isaiah to the King Messiah, as the Christian church pretends, it was obliged to suppose that the innocent had to die for the redemption of souls, on which supposition the whole Christian doctrine rests. How is it possible to apply this to a man whom the (Gentile) nations adore as God-man and the Son of God, who consequently lives and rules with God! What an unintelligible story this is!²¹⁴

How to Interpret Isaiah 53

If you trace the Servant motif beginning with Chapter 49 you can see why Isaiah 53 cannot refer to Isra’el. It can only refer to the Messiah, Jesus Christ. Because once Isaiah established who the Servant is in Chapter 49, he consistently maintains the same motif through Chapter 53.

A. In the general context there are the three other Servant passages:

The first Servant passage is 42:1-4 in which it spells out the mission of the Servant and the ministry He was to perform at His First Coming.

The second Servant passage is 49:1-13 in which there are three main points, first, in 49:1-4 the Servant of ADONAI is accomplishing His mission with great difficulty because He was being rejected by Isra’el. Secondly, in 49:5-7 we learn that because of Israel’s rejection of the Servant, He will become a light for the Gentiles and many of the Gentiles would come to Him. Thirdly, in 49:8-13, ultimately all Isra’el will come to a saving knowledge of the Servant and that is when the final regathering and restoration is going to take place.

The third Servant passage is 50:49 where it deals with the sufferings of the Servant of ADONAI. It describes the sufferings He will endure, but does not say anything about His death.

But now we come to 52:13 to 53:12, which is the fourth Servant passage, and the most strategic of the four Servant passages. There are two main points, why and how the Servant suffers.

B. The immediate context is in 51:5:

There we read: My righteousness draws near speedily, salvation is on the way, and My arm will bring justice to the nations. Righteousness and salvation is going to be brought forth from ADONAI. But the means by which salvation will come to men is by the arm. And in this arm the Gentiles will trust.

Awake, awake! Clothe yourself with strength, O arm of ADONAI; awake as in days gone by, as in generations of old (51:9). The point here being that it is the arm of the LORD that will redeem. ADONAI and the arm of ADONAI are two distinctive elements. It is going to be the arm of ADONAI that will bring about the redemption.

ADONAI will lay bare His holy arm in the sight of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God (52:10). Again notice the relationship between His holy arm and salvation. When all the nations look at God’s arm, what do they see? They see salvation (Yeshua); they see Jesus (Yeshua). This concept of the arm of ADONAI will be extensively developed in Chapter 53. In verse 1 we read: Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of ADONAI been revealed? And the rest of the chapter will be used to develop this theme.

One more thing in the immediate context is 52:3: For this is what ADONAI says: You were sold for nothing, and without money you will be redeemed. Yet, in Chapter 52 Isaiah says nothing about how Isra’el would be redeemed. He only speaks about how they would not be redeemed. But how would they be redeemed? That is the purpose of 52:13 to 53:12.

C. The prophetic setting of this chapter is a prophecy about the crucifixion and resurrection.

Both elements will be present. But the actual prophetic setting should be viewed as in the closing days of the Great Tribulation because this section is the national confession of Isra’el, just prior to the Second Coming of the Messiah. At the Messiah’s First Coming, prior to His departure, He said: You will not see me again until you say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” So here in Isaiah, we are told the words that all Israel (Romans 11:26) will use in her national confession (Zechariah 12:10 to 13:1), which in turn will bring about the Second Coming.

D. Does this chapter refer to an individual, the Messiah, or does it refer to the nation of Isra’el?

This is the major point of conflict in this chapter. The rabbinical interpretation today has this chapter referring to suffering Isra’el in the Gentile world. How can we prove that this cannot be so? How can we prove that this has to be an individual Personality? First, it is important to know that all ancient rabbis up until 1050 AD took the position that this is speaking of the Messiah. This is without exception. It was not until Rabbi Rashi, one of the most famous rabbis in the Jewish world, proposed the theory that Chapter 53 was referring to suffering Isra’el, that the idea was even considered. He was opposed in his day by the majority of the rabbis who said Rashi was deviating from the truth because he was going contrary to the teachings of the rabbis for the past ten or eleven centuries. But as time went on, the popularity of Rashi’s viewpoint began to take hold in Jewish theological circles. Even today Rashi serves, more or less, as a Jewish Pope to Orthodox Judaism. If someone wants to get a final word in a theological debate they go to Rashi. They will say, “Rashi says this,” or “Rashi says that.” As a result, Orthodox Judaism holds his view today. But originally, his was not the Jewish interpretation. The traditional Jewish viewpoint is that the passage is Messianic, not national.

A second way that Chapter 53 does not refer to the nation of Isra’el is by the use of distinctive pronouns. There is a contrast made between we, us, our and he, him, his. Who is the we, us, our? If Isra’el is the Suffering Servant then the we, and the us, and the our have to be the Gentile nations. The problem with that view is that this is Isaiah speaking. He was a Jew and his audience was all Jewish. He was not speaking to Gentiles here. So Isaiah, when identifying himself with his own people, uses the pronouns we, us and our. Those pronouns refer to Isra’el. But the pronouns He, His and Him has to be someone distinct from Isaiah and from Isra’el, and that only leaves us with the Messiah.

A third evidence is that throughout this chapter the Suffering Servant is viewed as an individual personality. A nation cannot go through the experiences that are attributed to the Suffering Servant. An entire nation cannot be put into a prison. An entire nation cannot be put to death. An entire nation cannot be put on trial. Only individuals go through those processes.

A fourth evidence, and one of the most compelling evidences, occurs in 53:7. While the Servant is suffering, His suffering is voluntary, willing, and silent. Isra’el has suffered. That is very true. But Isra’el has never suffered voluntarily, or willingly, or in silence. Look at the Jewish Defense League; they are anything but silent sufferers. One thing Isra’el is not famous for is suffering silently.

A fifth evidence is that in this chapter the Servant is suffering vicariously, by way of substitution, on behalf of others. And while Isra’el has suffered, the prophets have made it clear that Isra’el will suffer, but for her own sins. Not for the sins of the Gentiles. The Suffering Servant in this chapter is clearly declared to be an innocent sufferer, not guilty of any sin whatsoever.

A sixth evidence is that justification results because of the sufferings of the Servant in 53:10-12. Isra’el has suffered for over two millennia now and no one has been justified yet. No Gentile nation has been justified, or become righteous as a result of Isra’el’s suffering.

A seventh evidence is in 53:8-12. The Suffering Servant clearly dies. But while millions of Jews have died, Isra’el as a nation and as a people have always survived. And the Jewish people, with numerous attempts to do so, have never been destroyed.

An eighth evidence is the fact that this interpretation violates Zechariah 2:11b where we read that many Gentile nations will be joined with the Messiah. In that way ADONAI declares that that would be the super signal to let us know that the LORD of heaven’s angelic armies (CJB) had sent Him to us.

Finally, the Servant is resurrected. After He dies He is brought back to life. Isra’el never died to begin with, so there was no resurrection.

Therefore, the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53 cannot refer to the nation of Isra’el, it can only refer to One Person, the Messiah, Yeshua Messiah. There are five basic sections to this prophecy, and the first line of each section gives us the theme of that section.

How Beautiful on the Mountains
are the Feet of Those who Bring Good News
52: 7-12

How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news DIG: What generation is this prophesy directed to? What is its purpose? Who are they afraid of? Why? What two messages could the watchman bring? How sure was Isaiah of this prophesy? How do we know? What anthropomorphism does Isaiah use to describe God’s power? How is this departure similar or dissimilar to the exodus?

REFLECT: What does Paul say about beautiful feet in Romans 10:14-15? How do you best share your faith: (a) As an example to others? (b) Friendship evangelism? (c) Openly and boldly? (d) Silent witness? When is it helpful for an unbeliever to be confronted with a picture of how he or she appears to God? When might this be harmful? What can you learn about sharing the gospel from these verses? If you were put on trial for being a believer, would there be enough evidence to convict?

These verses continue the far eschatological prophecy to the believing remnant at the end of the Great Tribulation, in anticipation of the Good News. In his commentary on Isaiah, J. Vernon McGee comments on Jerusalem today. “One of the things you will not see about present-day Jerusalem is the lack of songs of joy. Around the Mosque of Omar (which stands on the Temple site) everything is in a minor key. If you go to the wailing wall, wailing is what you hear, and the Jews are knocking their heads against it. But the Millennium will be joyful– they will burst into songs of joy and they will sing together. It will be such a joyous time!”

He goes on to say, “Even today I don’t think God likes to see [believers] walking around with long faces, complaining and criticizing. He wants us to have joy. The apostle John wrote, We write this to make our joy complete (First John 1:40). The Millennium will be a time when God answers the prayer that our Lord taught His disciples: Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven (6:10). The tears and the sorrow will be gone; no longer will there be weeping on the earth. Instead there will be joy, and they will know that the Messianic Kingdom has come.”

A Day is coming when Isra’el will be redeemed, but not with money (to see link click Eu – The Rapture and the Great Tribulation for the different names of the Great Tribulation). Isaiah hasn’t said who will redeem her yet; that will come in Chapter 53. How will Isra’el know about this redemption? Someone will proclaim the Good News. They were to stand firm in the face of possible destruction by the antichrist. Would Satan crush them (see the commentary on Revelation Ds – The Woman and the Dragon), or would ADONAI fulfill His promises of deliverance? Suddenly, on a symbolic distant hill, a runner is seen. What is the news? As he comes nearer and nearer it can be seen that he is waving a victory palm like that used in building booths during the feast (Zechariah 14:16-19). ADONAI has won. Let the singing begin!

How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news (52:7a). Specifically, this will be the good news of God’s salvation. What beautiful feet! The word those in the Hebrew, literally mean the one. It should not suggest a group of runners, but a lone representative runner who comes with a radiant face and a spring in his step because he arrives with good news. That figurative runner will proclaim peace, he will bring good tidings, and he will also proclaim salvation (52:7b)! How is that salvation provided? We are told in the next chapter.

Peace, or shalom, with God signals the end of His wrath because Isra’el’s warfare had been completed (49:1 to 57:21). Paul would later take this verse and use it when describing the armor of God, saying: Stand firm with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace (Ephesians 6:14-15). What gospel, what good news is being delivered? It is specifically the Good News of God’s salvation.

Who says to Zion, “Your God reigns” (Isaiah 52:7c; Psalms 93:1, 97:1, 99:1)! What does His reign lead to? It is a condition where everything is in its proper relation to each other. There is peace. There is freedom from sin. In short, the Messianic Kingdom was at hand. Proclaiming the good news with simultaneous peace, goodness and salvation. There is a two-fold response.

The first response is by the watchman. This is poetry, and therefore figurative speech and imagery are seen here. Although the term watchman is elsewhere applied to the prophets (Isaiah 56:10; Jeremiah 6:17; Ezekiel 3:17, 33:2 and 7), here it is merely part of Isaiah’s figure of speech (Isaiah 21:11-12; Second Samuel 18:24). The first person to see any running figure, and deduce his message correctly, was normally the watchman. Both the symbolic watchman and the symbolic runner shout for joy as they see the evidence of ADONAI’s coming to Zion in victory. The people of the City hear the clamor of their voices and say to each other: Listen! The two of them are lifting up their voices; together they shout for joy (52:8a). Isaiah envisions a Day when faith will pass into sight and when the LORD returns to Zion, they will see it with their own eyes, literally eye to eye (52:8b). This does not imply being “in agreement,” but with total clarity.

The second response is seen in the ruins of Jerusalem. Once again, the figurative runner, as if anticipating a great revival says: Burst into songs of joy together, you ruins of Jerusalem. Thus, the ruins of Jerusalem are now called upon to join the watchman, and the running messenger and shout for joy (52:9a). Are the ruins of Jerusalem physical or spiritual? Probably both. On the one hand, a horrific battle had just taken place between the antichrist, his armies and the Jews in Jerusalem (Zechariah 14:2 and 16a), but we also know that there will be tremendous changes in the Land during the Messianic Kingdom (35:1-4). On the other hand, the antichrist will have set up his image in the Tribulation Temple to be worshiped by the whole world (see my commentary on Revelation Dr – The Abomination That Causes Desolation). But during the millennium Yeshua Messiah will rule and reign from the Most Holy Place in the Millennial Temple (see Db – The Nine Missing Articles from Messiah’s Coming Temple). So whether physical or spiritual, the ruins of Jerusalem will have plenty of reasons to shout for joy and burst into songs of joy.

For the LORD has comforted His people (40:1, 49:13, 51:3 and 12), He has redeemed Jerusalem (52:9b). The two verbs, comforted and redeemed are both prophetic perfects. These verbs show a past completed action pictured as if it had already happened. They are at the heart of Isaiah’s message, they speak of restored fellowship, deliverance from bondage, encouragement from despair, strength in weakness, and forgiveness of sin. When will all Jerusalem be redeemed? When all Israel is saved (Romans 11:26a) at the end of the Great Tribulation when the Jewish leadership recognizes who He is and pleads for Him to return as the Messiah (see my commentary on Revelation Ev – The Basis for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ).

As John Calvin comments, all this rejoicing is in anticipation. The evidence points to the victory of ADONAI. The signs show that he has defeated the enemy and is coming to set them free. But as of this moment, He is not yet here. Nevertheless, the people are called to participate in the hymn of thanksgiving and praise. Why? This is the faith and belief about which the prophet has been speaking throughout the book, and especially in this section. To give thanks in advance is the highest form of faith. The person praising God for what he or she does not possess is the person who truly believes in the promises of the LORD.²¹¹

ADONAI will lay bare His holy arm (the expression, roll up our sleeves and get to work would be an equivalent term today) in the sight of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God (52:10). This verse precludes this section being a description of the return from the Babylonian Captivity. When we take an objective look at history, it is obvious that all the ends of the earth did not see the salvation of ADONAI at that time. However, right before the Second Coming the Servant is pictured here as being ready for action, His sleeves are rolled up and the nations will see Him soon. There is a great deal of anticipation in this verse. Now it is about to be realized! Look, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of Him. So shall it be! Amen (Revelation 1:7, and 5:5 and 19:11-21; Titus 2:13).

These are critical concepts to understand. What two things are connected here? God’s holy arm and salvation. When God bares His holy arm (Isaiah uses an anthropomorphism so that we can see this concept more clearly), the earth sees salvation. And what is the Hebrew word for salvation? Yeshua; Jesus. There is constant interplay between God’s arm and salvation. Isaiah introduced this concept earlier: My righteousness draws near speedily, My salvation is on the way, and My arm will bring justice to the nations. The islands will look to Me and wait in hope for My arm. But My salvation will last forever, My righteousness will never fail (51:5 and 6b). This is the fifth of nine references to the arm of the LORD in Isaiah (30:30 and 32, 40:10, 50:2, 51:5 and 9, 53:1, 59:1 and 16, 62:8, 63:5).

After Isra’el’s national salvation and redemption, comes her final restoration. But there is a seventy-five-day interval following the last day of the Great Tribulation and the start of the Messianic Kingdom. Several things will take place at that time (see the commentary on Revelation Ey – The Seventy-Five Day Interval), and afterwards there will be a call for all of Zion to depart from wherever they are in the world in purity and holiness: Depart, depart, go out from there! They are to touch no unclean thing. Come out from it and be pure, you who carry the vessels of the LORD (52:11).

The root of depart, swr, has the meaning of turning aside, or taking away, and is used in connection with the absolute separation from evil (Jeremiah 4:4; 2 Chronicles 32:12; Isaiah 36:7; Ezekiel 11:19). Something has happened to change them from defiled to clean. The central issue here is not physical bondage, but the bondage of evil with its corruption and defilement. If the return from the Babylonian Captivity were in view here, only the Levites would be permitted to carry those implements. But here all of Zion participates. They are all to purify themselves on the way to Jerusalem so that they may carry the vessels of the LORD. Because we know that the vessels commonly associated with the Tabernacle in the desert, or Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem, will not be present in the Messianic Temple (see Db – The Nine Missing Article’s in Messiah’s Coming Temple), apparently other vessels will be needed for a purpose we do not know at this time. But what ever they are, they must be very important because those who carry them back to the Land need to be pure.

Then a distinction is made between the future final restoration, when Israel departs from all the nations of the earth back to the Land (see De – God Is My Salvation, I Will Trust and Not Be Afraid), and the exodus from Egypt. Whenever Isaiah, or any other Hebrew prophet begins to talk about the deliverance, it is the Exodus to which their minds turn sooner or later, and that is the case here. Back in 51:9-10 God was reminded by the prayer concerning His miracles of the exodus. Now God returns to the Exodus motif and draws a distinction between the Exodus and the final restoration.

First, there are two dissimilarities. God says that at that future time the Jews will not leave in haste or go in flight (52:12a). In the Exodus, however, the Jews did leave in haste. They were told to eat the Passover with their cloak tucked into their belts, their sandals on their feet, and their staff in their hands. They were to eat in haste (Exodus 12:11). Secondly, Jews had to flee as a result of persecution from Egypt, but unlike the former deliverance, this one will not be in the middle of the night, scurrying away from potential pursuers. They will not have to flee persecution from anyone in the final restoration.

However, there are two similarities. In the Exodus, God was present, both before and behind His people (Exodus 13:21; 14:19-20; Isaiah 42:16; 49:10 and 58:8). In front, He will lead, and behind, He will gather up the stragglers and be sure that they do not fall prey into the hands of their pursuers. So it will be in the future final restoration. For the LORD will go before you, and the God of Isra’el will be your rear guard (52:12b). Therefore, there were two dissimilarities with the Exodus and two similarities with the Exodus.

When Ahaz was king of Judah, the Assyrian threat to God’s people was very real. The reality of an attack and the fear that it brought was also very real. Therefore, ADONAI sent Isaiah to meet him and relay this message: Be careful, keep calm and don’t be afraid (7:4). Little did Ahaz know that the supposed attack would never take place (see Gw – Then the Angel of the LORD Put To Death a Hundred and Eighty Five Thousand Men in the Assyrian Camp). Isaiah prophesied the same message to the persecuted believing remnant at the end of the Great Tribulation. Because the Jews will be just as terrified of the antichrist as Ahaz was terrified of the Assyrians, He reminds them, “Don’t be afraid.” Little will they know that their utter destruction would never take place (see Kh – The Eight Stage Campaign of Armageddon). Because ADONAI will be with them and protect them, they need not fear. Is it any less true for us today?

My People Will Know My Name
52: 1-6

Awake, awake, O Zion, put on your garments of splendor DIG: What is the context of these verses? Why did Zion need to be aroused? When will Jerusalem be pure and undefiled? When will the uncircumcised and defiled never enter Jerusalem again? When is the only time that Yerushalayim can be clothed with strength? When will she put on her holy garments of splendor? What are the promises given to Isra’el here? When will she truly know the name of the LORD?

REFLECT: What spiritual awakening have you had lately? In what sense are you clothed with the strength of the LORD today? As a believer, do you wear a robe of righteousness (61:10)? How are you freed from the chains of sin? What does it mean to have an uncircumcised heart (Rom 2:28-29a)? What is the root problem of an uncircumcised heart? Is your heart, circumcised or uncircumcised? What can you do about that?

Chapter 52 is a far eschatological prophecy to the believing remnant living at the end of the Great Tribulation. The context drives our interpretation. We see that the uncircumcised and the defiled will never enter her again (51:1). When will Isra’el be pure and undefiled? It certainly did not happen when she returned from the Babylonian Captivity, nor did it happen when Isra’el rejected Messiah on the grounds of demon possession (see my commentary on The Life of Christ, to see link click Ek – It is only by Beelzebub, the Prince of Demons, that This Fellow Drives Out Demons). And it definitely is not true today as Isra’el is a secular nation. No, Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled (see the commentary on Revelation An – The Times of the Gentiles). The times of Gentile domination over Jerusalem actually began when the Babylonians took the City and nation into captivity in 586 BC. Jerusalem will again fall under Gentile domination in the Great Tribulation (Zechariah 14:1-2).²⁰⁹ Therefore, the faithful remnant will be comforted when they look to their ultimate deliverance in the messianic Kingdom.

The context of these verses reveals the death of the Servant on the cross, and as a result, Isra’el’s national confession at the end of the Great Tribulation (53:1-9). Consequently, we need to consider the question, “When will all the ends of the earth see the salvation of our God” (52:10)? This can only be at the Second Coming. The call will go out to the believing remnant to awake and use His strength for their deliverance. Five actions are required of her as she awakens from her spiritual sleep.

First, Awake, awake, O Zion, clothe yourself with strength (52:1a). Jerusalem needed to awake not only because the antichrist and the armies of the world were destroying them, but they needed to be encouraged with the reality that very soon they would be freshly clothed with strength and new garments of splendor. We can be confident of our interpretation because this command would not have been very encouraging to the exiles returning from the Babylonian Captivity. The reality of it could never happen in their lifetime. However, that the believing remnant of the end times will be desperate for this message.

Secondly, Put on your (holy NKJ) garments of splendor (52:1b). Isra’el was pictured sitting in sackcloth and ashes in a state of mourning. The ideal of a priestly people had never been realized (Exodus 33:26; Numbers 8:5-22), but, on awakening she found her priestly garments of splendor laid out for her (Exodus 28:2). Isaiah calls Jerusalem the holy city. The requirements of God’s holiness were met in 51:17-23; now the divine holiness of ADONAI is shared with His people. We learn more about these holy garments of splendor later in the book when reading about the restoration of Isra’el. There she says: I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For He has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness (61:10a). These holy garments could only be put on a holy people, and that can only happen after Israel’s national confession of sin (53:1-9), her regeneration and entrance into the millennial Kingdom (Revelation 20:1-6).

Thirdly, Isaiah says to shake off your dust (52:2a). This means to stop mourning. Dust on one’s head was a sign of mourning (Job 2:12). The mourner is exhorted to rise from the dust and take a higher position; not to sit down again in the dust. The language seems to embrace the idea of a throne, or a high seat. The mourning was to be changed to rejoicing.²¹⁰

Fourthly, rise up and sit enthroned (52:2b). Instead of being called to sit down in the dust as Babylon had (47:1), the Daughter of Zion will be called to rise from it. The Targum reading, “sit on a throne of glory,” probably catches the essence of what is intended. Babylon will have to go down from the throne to sit in the dust, but Jerusalem will rise from the dust to sit on the throne.

And fifthly, Isra’el will need to free herself from the chains on her neck, O captive Daughter of Zion (52:2c). Although Zion’s deliverance is entirely the work of ADONAI and not her own, she is not merely an observer. Those whom the LORD calls must exercise their own will and effort in response to what God has already done on their behalf, as this verse makes plain. Jerusalem is not merely lifted from the dust, but is called to get herself up and shake the dust off. In addition, she must free herself from the chains on her neck. We cannot break the chains that bind us, only ADONAI can do that. But after the chains are broken, we must remove them, and only we can do that. This is the crucial moment in any recovery; the moment when we stop seeing ourselves as a captive, that is, a victim, a helpless molecule traveling down the river of life, and begin to realize that the LORD has placed an opportunity before us that we may take hold of, if we dare.

As far as Jerusalem is concerned, today the Arab is there. Many of the sacred spots are covered with churches – Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and the Church of all nations – they are all over the place! But Yerushalayim needs to be freed from religion, and released from her own sin. For twenty-five hundred years Jerusalem has been trampled on by the Gentiles, but a Day is coming when the chains on her neck will be removed. It will come during the Millennial Kingdom (Revelation 20:1-6).

The result will be that the uncircumcised and defiled will not enter Jerusalem again (52:1c). Uncleanness will finally be a matter of the spirit, not the flesh. Israel’s problem was much more than the persecution in the second half of the Great Tribulation; that was a result. The root problem was sin, or having an uncircumcised heart. This is what the arm of the LORD would deliver them from. No, if they were going to be a holy people living in the holy City, something must happen to cure them of their rebellion and uncleanness (Rev 21:27).

As important as circumcision was to the Jews, Paul reminds us that it was only an outward symbol. It was a constant reminder of their sinfulness and obligation to obey the Torah (Galatians 5:3). The prophets had made it clear that mere physical circumcision had no spiritual power or benefit (Jeremiah 9:25-26); disobedient circumcised Jews were under the same judgment as uncircumcised Gentiles (Romans 2:26-27).

Paul said that the real Jew is not merely Jewish outwardly; true circumcision is not only external and physical. On the contrary, the real Jew is one inwardly and; true circumcision is of the heart, by the Spirit of God, not some written code (Romans 2:28-29a). Only those Jews and Gentiles with circumcised hearts by the Ruach ha-Kodesh would be allowed to enter Zion during the messianic Kingdom. This could only happen with the redemption of Isra’el (see the commentary on Exodus Bz – Redemption).

As stated above, this is a far eschatological prophecy to the last Jewish generation before the coming of Yeshua Messiah and points to their ultimate redemption. For this is what the LORD says: You were sold for nothing, and without money you will be redeemed (52:3). Earlier ADONAI said that she was sold, but not for money. Where is your mother’s certificate of divorce with which I sent her away? Or to which of My creditors did I sell you? Because of your sins you were sold; because of your transgressions your mother was sent away (50:1). Isra’el had been complaining that God had divorced her and sold her into slavery. But God said that was not true. If there was a divorce during the last days, produce a certificate of divorce. There wasn’t any. Furthermore, according to the Torah, if a man got into debt he could sell his sons into slavery to pay it off. But to whom was God indebted? No one. God owed no one money. Because of your sins you were sold. That was the background here. Isra’el was sold for nothing and God gained nothing financially. In the same way, it will be without money that Isra’el will be redeemed (35:9b-10). He does not say how she will be redeemed (That will be his theme in the next chapter. It will be by the death of the Suffering Servant).

Then God briefly reviews the history of the nation in slavery. For this is what Adonai ELOHIM says: Long ago My people went down to Egypt to live there as aliens and more recently (in Isaiah’s lifetime) Assyria had conquered the northern Kingdom of Isra’el and oppressed them (52:4 CJB). The point is clear that if in the beginning of her history God delivered the Israelites from Egypt when they had gone there of their own free will, how much more likely will He be to deliver them from the antichrist when they were being taken against their own will.

Two things move ADONAI: the misery of His people and the honor of His name. “And now what do I do in this situation?” declares the LORD. For My people have been taken away by force and without cause, and those who rule them mock” (52:5a). What hurts them hurts Him. Now an even greater power, the antichrist and the forces of the Adversary, rule over and mock her. And all day long My name is constantly blasphemed (52:5b). It will seem to the watching world that Isra’el’s belief in ADONAI was a rip-off. Either He wasn’t even real or He had been forced by superior gods to surrender His people. This is the same point Ezeki’el makes in 36:19-20; God’s reputation, His name, would be blasphemed because of His clear inability to protect His own. The seriousness of the contempt is emphasized by its continual nature: all day long. But the allegations will be false. ADONAI had not failed His people and their pain was not the result of His inability to deliver them. Hence the opening question of this verse: And now what do I do in this situation? The LORD’s response is expressed in two statements of consequence, both prefaced with the word therefore.

Therefore, My people will know My name (52:6a). Like the exodus, ADONAI will show His power in the face of His enemy; then, with Pharaoh, in the Great Tribulation, with the antichrist. He will do so in a way that the truth of His character and His nature cannot be missed. Although Ezeki’el is more specific about what the LORD will do to honor His name, the point is exactly the same (Ezek 36:21-32). The evidence will need to be displayed in the life of Isra’el. This was not true on her return from the Babylonian Captivity, nor is it true now. Today Isra’el is a secular society and the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is not generally reflected in the lifestyle of her people. Those who love Yeshua Messiah are the exception, rather than the rule. But during the Messianic Kingdom, His people will know His name.

Therefore, on that Day they will know that I, the one speaking – here I Am (52:6b CJB). The repetition of therefore expresses emotional intensity. At the exodus, ADONAI set up Moses as a mediator to speak for Him, but in this coming Day He Himself will speak for Himself. This world has rejected Jesus Christ. It doesn’t know Him. But one day He will say to this Christ-rejecting world, Here I Am, and it will be too late for the multitudes that have rejected Him (see the commentary on Revelation By – The Rapture of the Church). They will have to go through the wrath of the Great Tribulation.