The Book of Isaiah

Hebrew Study

Explanation

The chapter opens with the same "Awake, awake" that closed the last, but now the command is not to God's arm but to Zion herself. She is told to rise from the dust of humiliation, "put on thy strength... put on thy beautiful garments", to trade the rags of captivity for the robes of a redeemed city. The days of the "uncircumcised and the unclean" trampling through her are ending. Then God explains the strange economics of her rescue: "Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money." She sold herself into slavery for nothing, gaining nothing by her sin, and she will be bought back not with silver but by God's own power. He rehearses her history of oppression, Egypt, Assyria, and notes that her captors have made His "name continually every day" blasphemed. So He acts for His name's sake: "my people shall know my name... they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak: behold, it is I." The whole point of redemption is that God's people would truly know Him.

Gospel Focus

"Ye shall be redeemed without money." This is one of the clearest previews of grace in the Old Testament. The captives could never buy their own freedom, they had sold themselves "for nought" and had nothing left to pay. Redemption had to come as a gift. Peter draws the line straight to Christ: "ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold... But with the precious blood of Christ" (1 Peter 1:18-19). "Without money" does not mean without cost; it means the cost was paid by Another. Your salvation is free to you because it was infinitely expensive to Him. And the goal of it all is relationship, "my people shall know my name." God does not merely rescue us from bondage; He reveals Himself to us, and in the end says, "behold, it is I", the very presence of God stepping forward. That self-disclosure reached its fullness when God was "manifest in the flesh" (1 Timothy 3:16) in Jesus. Shake off the dust, captive soul; your Redeemer has come, and He asks no payment you cannot give.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

This is one of the most vivid scenes in Isaiah. Picture a besieged city waiting for news from a distant battle. A runner appears on the mountains, and his very feet are "beautiful" because of the message he carries: the war is won. He "publisheth peace... publisheth salvation," and cries to Zion the best news of all, "Thy God reigneth!" The watchmen on the walls, who see the herald coming, burst into song, "they shall see eye to eye." Even the "waste places," the rubble of the ruined city, are told to "break forth into joy," because "the LORD hath comforted his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem." And this salvation is not a private, local affair; God "hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations," rolling up His sleeve like a warrior, so that "all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God." The good news of God's reign and rescue is meant to fill the whole world.

Gospel Focus

Paul takes verse 7 and makes it the anthem of gospel preaching. Quoting this very verse, he writes, "how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!" (Romans 10:15). The herald over the mountains is every messenger who carries the good news of Jesus, and the message is exactly this: the war against sin and death is over, God has won, "Thy God reigneth." The "peace" published is the peace Jesus made "through the blood of his cross" (Colossians 1:20), and the "salvation" is His own name, Yeshuah. Notice that the good news announces a finished victory, not a battle we must fight. The runner does not say, "Go and win"; he says, "It is won." And "all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God", the Great Commission is in this verse, the gospel reaching every nation. If your feet carry that news to anyone, Scripture calls them beautiful. God reigns; the war is over; tell someone.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

The good news of redemption carries a summons: "Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence." God's redeemed people are not to stay settled in Babylon; they are to leave. And they are to leave clean, "touch no unclean thing... be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the LORD." Those who carry holy things must themselves be holy. But this exodus will be different from the first. The escape from Egypt was in "haste," eaten standing with staff in hand; this departure is unhurried and unafraid, "ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight." Why the calm? Because they are not fleeing on their own; they are being led. "The LORD will go before you," as the pillar of cloud once did, "and the God of Israel will be your rereward", the rear guard who protects the stragglers. Front and back, the redeemed are hemmed in by God Himself. They can walk out of captivity in peace.

Gospel Focus

"Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing" (2 Corinthians 6:17), Paul quotes this passage to call believers to holy separation from the world. Redemption always includes a departure. To be saved is to "come out" of the old life of bondage and to walk in cleanness, "that bear the vessels of the LORD," for every believer is now a vessel set apart for God's use, "a vessel unto honour, sanctified" (2 Timothy 2:21). But notice that this holiness is not a fearful, white-knuckled flight. The believer does not have to escape the old life in a panic, because "the LORD will go before you; and the God of Israel will be your rereward." Christ leads the way ahead of you and guards you from behind, protecting your past and your future alike. You can leave sin behind with confidence, not because you are strong, but because you are surrounded, front and back, by your Redeemer.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

Here the fourth and greatest Servant Song opens, and it continues unbroken through all of chapter 53. God begins at the end of the story, with triumph: "Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high." Three words for exaltation are piled up, the Servant will rise to the very heights. But then, abruptly, God reveals the strange road to that glory. The Servant's appearance was appalling: "his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men." People were "astonied", horrified, at the sight of Him. He would be beaten beyond human recognition. And yet out of that horror comes cleansing for the world: "So shall he sprinkle many nations", using the priestly word for sprinkling cleansing blood. Before Him even "kings shall shut their mouths," silenced in awe. What they had never been told, they would see; what they had never heard, they would at last understand. The pattern is set for chapter 53: suffering first, then glory, and cleansing for the nations through the Servant's marred body.

Gospel Focus

These three verses are the overture to the greatest prophecy of Christ in the Old Testament. Every note is Jesus. He is the Servant "exalted and extolled, and be very high", the same words used of the LORD on His throne (Isaiah 6:1), for the Servant is God's own salvation come in flesh. Paul echoes the exaltation exactly: "God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name" (Philippians 2:9). Yet the path to that throne ran through a face "so marred more than any man." At His trial and crucifixion Jesus was beaten, crowned with thorns, and disfigured until He scarcely looked human, exactly as Isaiah foresaw seven centuries earlier. And His purpose was priestly, "so shall he sprinkle many nations", to cleanse the whole world by His blood, "the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel" (Hebrews 12:24). Paul even applied the closing words to his own mission of preaching Christ where He had never been named (Romans 15:21). The marred Servant became the exalted Lord, and by His sprinkled blood the nations are made clean. Behold Him, and be cleansed.