Isaiah_41

Chapter 41 – God overrules individuals; God invites Israel to trust Him; God overturns idols

Isaiah 41:1-7 – Who Controls History?  –  God overrules individuals!

Isaiah 41:1-7 (ESV)
¹  Listen to me in silence, O coastlands; let the peoples renew their strength; let them approach, then let them speak; let us together draw near for judgment.
²  Who stirred up one from the east whom victory meets at every step? He gives up nations before him, so that he tramples kings underfoot; he makes them like dust with his sword, like driven stubble with his bow.
³  He pursues them and passes on safely, by paths his feet have not trod.
⁴  Who has performed and done this, calling the generations from the beginning? I, the LORD, the first, and with the last; I am he.
⁵  The coastlands have seen and are afraid; the ends of the earth tremble; they have drawn near and come.
⁶  Everyone helps his neighbor and says to his brother, “Be strong!”
⁷  The craftsman strengthens the goldsmith, and he who smooths with the hammer him who strikes the anvil, saying of the soldering, “It is good”; and they strengthen it with nails so that it cannot be moved.

V.1 – Listen  (the imperative calling for “silence” to get the people’s attention.
God’s attention is turned to the Gentile nations and judgment is coming soon.  V.1 “let us draw near for judgment”  as it is now that God is calling upon individuals to turn to Him and accept the gift of salvation.

V.2-3 – A worldwide issue has to be settled first.  Who is in charge of the nations?  At present there is a widespread misconception of God in that the world holds to the idea that God is uninvolved in our world.  With that view the conclusion is that one’s life has no meaning.

V.2- My research on text that stated:  “Who stirred up one from the east whom victory meets at every step?” This generates the question:  “Who empowers this unidentified conquering king? “   and thus asking:  was it God or some foreign god(s)?
The text here is God providing us with a ‘self-introduction’ that claims his sovereignty and divine control over history.  God has the status, longevity, and past performance to support the claims that He is the One True God.

Ray Orland quotes G. K. Chesterton and adds a comment:
I think it was G. K. Chesterton who said, “When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing; they believe in anything.” That’s true. When fearful people lose their sense of God, what do they do? They join together to construct their own meanings, their own myths. And the artificiality of it all is the world’s guilty secret (Romans 1:18–32).^[1]

Isaiah 41:8-10 (ESV)  God Alone Emboldens Us!
⁸  But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend;
⁹  you whom I took from the ends of the earth, and called from its farthest corners, saying to you, “You are my servant, I have chosen you and not cast you off”;
¹⁰  fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
God longs for us to draw strength from this greatness.

V.8 “But” is there to draw contrast between the nations with their homemade saviors and the Sovereign God of the universe.  This is the God that chooses to uphold us by his unerringly righteous right hand.

V.9 “you are my servant, I have chosen you and not cast you off.

In these verses it’s like God is showing us that he wants us to know what we can expect from him.  That his presence, strength, help and perfect support is there for us.

V.10 – Two men in the history of the Jews are mentioned:

1. Jacob, the crooked one and yet and God made him, Israel a prince with God.
2. Abraham, the friend of God that God worked with to develop a right relationship with him.

Showing that God works to develop his servants to be the leaders he chooses them to be.  He wants us to subject ourselves to this refining process.  Thus, as V. 10 states…“I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee”

Quote:  Expositor’s Bible Commentary:

The name Israel suggests what God is determined to make of his people (Gen 32:28), while the name Jacob indicates that God loves them and has chosen them despite their demerit (see comment at 40:27). Taking them from the ends of the earth is hyperbole laying stress on the distance of Abraham’s journey from Ur to Canaan, undertaken under God’s watchful and caring eye. God chose the people for a purpose of service; and so, of course, they cannot perish without that purpose being fulfilled. These people are loved for the sake of beloved Abraham (cf. Deut 7:7–8), to whom God gave great promises (Gen 12:1–3; 17:1–8 et al.). The strength already promised (40:31) would be theirs. The threefold affirmation of strength comes to its consummation in a reference to the righteous right hand of God, a reminder possibly of the tender strength of the Shepherd-King in 40:9–11.^[2]

(Provided quote to give the reader the research of others on in explanation as to what Isaiah meant in his ‘name-dropping’ in the text.)

Isaiah 41:11-13 (ESV)
¹¹  Behold, all who are incensed against you shall be put to shame and confounded; those who strive against you shall be as nothing and shall perish.
¹²  You shall seek those who contend with you, but you shall not find them; those who war against you shall be as nothing at all.
¹³  For I, the LORD your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, “Fear not, I am the one who helps you.”

V.13 “For I, The LORD your God, hold your right hand;”… An overture to trust Him.

Isaiah 41:14-16 (ESV)
¹⁴  Fear not, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel! I am the one who helps you, declares the LORD; your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.
¹⁵  Behold, I make of you a threshing sledge, new, sharp, and having teeth; you shall thresh the mountains and crush them, and you shall make the hills like chaff;
¹⁶  you shall winnow them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the tempest shall scatter them. And you shall rejoice in the LORD; in the Holy One of Israel you shall glory.

V.14 – Jacob is used again as an example of a ‘worm’ that God used and help.  How less so will He help us worms.  He was Israel’s redeemer and wants to be that to us as well.  It is only God that can make any of us important.

V.15-16 –  We’re totally inadequate but God makes the worm, Jacob, into the threshing sledge and not an old worn out one but a sharp new one.  Isaiah is talking about the gospel of human weakness triumphing over opposition.  It is speaking about our timid faith overcoming the world. God will make us to be conquerors for his glory.

2 Corinthians 4:7 (ESV)
⁷  But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

Isaiah 41:17-20 (ESV)   God is a life-giving person!
¹⁷  When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue is parched with thirst, I the LORD will answer them; I the God of Israel will not forsake them.
¹⁸  I will open rivers on the bare heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys. I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.
¹⁹  I will put in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive. I will set in the desert the cypress, the plane and the pine together,
²⁰  that they may see and know, may consider and understand together, that the hand of the LORD has done this, the Holy One of Israel has created it.

We get the mercy, and God gets the glory.  The pouring of water symbolizes the bountiful salvation overflowing with the Holy Spirit.  When thirsty people ‘seek water’ in prayer and God answers.  By serving God’s purpose we enjoy his abundant goodness in the sight of the nations.

Isaiah 41:21-29 (ESV)   The challenge to idolatry….
²¹  Set forth your case, says the LORD; bring your proofs, says the King of Jacob.
²²  Let them bring them, and tell us what is to happen. Tell us the former things, what they are, that we may consider them, that we may know their outcome; or declare to us the things to come.
²³  Tell us what is to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods; do good, or do harm, that we may be dismayed and terrified.
²⁴  Behold, you are nothing, and your work is less than nothing; an abomination is he who chooses you.
²⁵  I stirred up one from the north, and he has come, from the rising of the sun, and he shall call upon my name; he shall trample on rulers as on mortar, as the potter treads clay.
²⁶  Who declared it from the beginning, that we might know, and beforehand, that we might say, “He is right”? There was none who declared it, none who proclaimed, none who heard your words.
²⁷  I was the first to say to Zion, “Behold, here they are!” and I give to Jerusalem a herald of good news.
²⁸  But when I look, there is no one; among these there is no counselor who, when I ask, gives an answer.
²⁹  Behold, they are all a delusion; their works are nothing; their metal images are empty wind.

1. McGee states about this section of scripture:

This is a challenge to idolatry. Now who is an idolater? Have you ever considered the possibility that you may be? Anything you put between your soul and God is your idol—regardless of what it is. It is anything to which you are giving your time and your energy; it could actually be your religion. Anything that you allow to take the place of a personal relationship with God is your idol.

What can idols do? Can they explain the origin of the universe? Are you satisfied today with the explanations that evolution has given? Of course there have been several explanations, but God says, “Bring them all out.”

…“Confusion” is the end result of idolatry or any philosophy which is anti–God or atheistic. It does not have the answers to the problems of life. These man–made systems cannot satisfy the human heart. The answer is found in the One who brings good tidings of great joy.^[3]

V.21-24 – God sues the idols for false advertising

V.25-27 – God proves his own ability to activate history

V.28-29 – God dismisses the idols as a delusion

Galatians 5:1-6

5 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

² Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. ³ I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. ⁴ You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. ⁵ For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. ⁶ For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.

If one become a ‘legalistic believer’ than we are enslaving ourselves to our old idols of self-defined righteousness in defiance of Christ’s righteousness.   We would be bringing in ‘works-righteousness’ into ourselves and the church.  “Works-righteousness’ would become an idol as we are looking toward the idol of ‘self-behavior’ to preserve us as we say in our hearts we can do it within our own strength.  Pride!

Information on word “periscope”:

Pericope = noun – an extract from a text, especially a passage from the Bible.   Lectionaries are normally made up of pericopes containing the Epistle and Gospel readings for the liturgical year. A pericope consisting of passages from different parts of a single book, or from different books of the Bible, and linked together into a single reading is called a concatenation or composite reading.

^[1] Ortlund, R. C., Jr., & Hughes, R. K. (2005). Isaiah: God saves sinners (p. 261). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.

^[2] Grogan, G. W. (1986). Isaiah. In F. E. Gaebelein (Ed.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel (Vol. 6, p. 250). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.

^[3] McGee, J. V. (1991). Thru the Bible commentary: The Prophets (Isaiah 36-66) (electronic ed., Vol. 23, pp. 40–54). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.