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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comThrough the Bible Day by Day - Isaiah 49:1 - 49:1
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
“A Light to the Gentiles”
Isa 48:17-22; Isa 49:1-13
The first division of this second part of Isaiah closes at Isa 48:22, with the phrase there is no peace to the wicked. The second division of part 2 closes with a similar phrase, Isa 57:21. The first division here ends with the proclamation for Israel to leave Babylon. They need never have gone there. If only they have been obedient in every particular theirs would have been the happy lot of Isa 48:18, as contrasted with Isa 48:22. But even under such circumstances, in captivity and as slaves of the Chaldeans the redeeming grace of God would triumph, Isa 48:20; Isa 49:5.
The second great division of Part 2 opens with Isa 49:1. In their first and immediate reference, these verses evidently apply to our Lord. See Act 13:47, etc. In the mission of Jesus, the ideal of the Hebrew race was realized. As the white flower on the stalk He revealed the essential beauty and glory of the root, Isa 49:6. See Hos 11:1; Mat 2:1-2; Mat 2:14-15, etc.
There is a secondary sense, also, in which the Christian worker may appropriate many things in this glowing paragraph. Our mouth must be surrendered to God, that He may use it for His own high purposes. But do not dread the shadow of His hand. It is the quiver case in which He keeps His chosen arrows against the battle!