PRO’s - Isaiah 43

A Starting Point

Let’s begin our time by quickly revisiting chapter 42.

Chapter 42 begins by describing the Lord’s chosen servant.

42:1-9 is the first of four Servant Songs in Isaiah. These Servant Songs refer to the ultimate “servant of the Lord” that would eventually come, and Jesus Christ fulfills these each of them.

In 42:18-25, Israel is now the “servant” in view.

The Lord will send his ultimate “Servant,” but Israel was originally chosen and made to be YHWH’s “servant.” Instead of being a “light to the nations” (which the “Servant of the Lord” is prophesied to be), Israel is blind and deaf.

Isaiah 1:5–6; “Why will you still be struck down? Why will you continue to rebel? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and raw wounds; they are not pressed out or bound up or softened with oil.”

Isaiah 42:23–25 “Who among you will give ear to this, will attend and listen for the time to come? Who gave up Jacob to the looter, and Israel to the plunderers? Was it not the Lord, against whom we have sinned, in whose ways they would not walk, and whose law they would not obey? So he poured on him the heat of his anger and the might of battle; it set him on fire all around, but he did not understand; it burned him up, but he did not take it to heart.”

God gave Israel up to plundering and captivity at the hands of the Babylonians because they had broken their covenant with him despite his gracious and consistent pursuit.

So, we get to our text today on a bit of a cliff-hanger: what does this mean for Israel? Is God abandoning them? Will he forfeit his redemptive promises to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3? What about the Davidic Covenant?

Our passage today shows us God’s faithfulness to his promises and the depths of his love for his people.

READ 43:1-7

“But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you. Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life. Fear not, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you. I will say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Do not withhold; bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.’”

God was sending Israel into the fire of the Babylonian captivity, and he is promising—with vivid and personal language—that he would not completely destroy her. God’s people would not be consumed.

Notice the basis for God’s faithfulness to Israel:

(v. 1, 7) He created and formed her,

(v. 1) He redeemed and called her by name,

(v. 3) He is her God and Savior,

(v. 4) She is precious in his eyes,

(v. 4) She is honored by him,

(v. 4) He loves her,

(v. 5) He is with her.

Deuteronomy 7:6–8 ““For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”

In other words, Israel’s long-term hope is bound up in God’s devotion to her—and he could not be more devoted. All they contributed to this predicament was their sin and disobedience, while God alone is responsible for preserving them and drawing them back to himself.

This is God’s heart on display in the pages of Scripture. When he creates a people for himself, there is no half-heartedness present in God. He is all-in. No matter what, when God sets a people apart for himself, he is devoted to them with the fullness of his heart. Which means that God is devoted to us! There will never come a moment when he will feel like turning away from us. We are secure in his faithful love.

The proper love of a father is one of long-suffering. Nothing his child can do should ever remove his love or devotion to them. And our heavenly Father exemplifies this perfectly.

Notice also that God is promising to gather his people from every corner of the earth (vv. 5-6).

He is going to send them into captivity and scatter them among the nations, but he will gather them from the East, West, North, and South.

Listen to what God said to Israel in Deuteronomy 30:

Deuteronomy 30:1–4 ““And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you, and return to the Lord your God, you and your children, and obey his voice in all that I command you today, with all your heart and with all your soul, then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you, and he will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you. If your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there he will take you.”

God—who is sovereign over every nook and cranny of created reality—will leverage his sovereignty for the deliverance of his people. And not a select few of his people, but “everyone who is called by name” (v. 7).

So in this first section, we see God’s promise to remain faithful to his people even in spite of their rebellion against him. Our God is a covenant-keeping God, and Scripture portrays him as happy to be gracious to his people who have nothing to offer him but their need.

READ 43:8-13

“Bring out the people who are blind, yet have eyes, who are deaf, yet have ears! All the nations gather together, and the peoples assemble. Who among them can declare this, and show us the former things? Let them bring their witnesses to prove them right, and let them hear and say, It is true. ‘You are my witnesses,’ declares the Lord, ‘and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me. I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no savior. I declared and saved and proclaimed, when there was no strange god among you; and you are my witnesses,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I am God. Also henceforth I am he; there is none who can deliver from my hand; I work, and who can turn it back?’”

Now that God has promised his delivering grace to his people, he is now displaying his God-ness to the watching world.

Who is verse 8 referring to? Israel. This is God prophetically calling Israel out of captivity before she was even taken into captivity.

So God then appeals to the nations—whose idols Israel had made a practice of worshipping—to serve as witnesses to his work, “that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he” (v. 10). God is proving himself to Israel and the nations.

Notice that God refers to “the former things” in verse 9. This likely is referring to the prophecies that had come before that time. His prediction of what is and would happen to Israel and the nations around her serve as a witness to the fact that he is in fact God. Prophecy is an evidence of the reality of God.

Notice also the contradiction God draws between himself and the idols of the nations in verses 10-12. The idols which the nations had made and Israel had made a practice of worshipping are merely clay. They offer no help or salvation to anyone who worships them. They are the work of human hands and remain finite, whereas God is infinite.

John Calvin once said that “the human heart is an idol factory.” We, as humans, are prone toward and very good at making idols in place of God.

Tim Keller wrote, “What is an idol? It is anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give.”

We must have a pulse on what we are prone to make into an idol in our own lives. We must ask the Holy Spirit to reveal those to us and have the courage to confront them. And a good question we can ask is, “what is absorbing my heart and imagination most? What is taking up the most space in my thought life?”

And when the Lord reveals them to us, we can agree with what God says here about them: they are finite, they cannot save us, they are the work of human hands, they will never satisfy our souls, and they are incomparable with the glory of God.

God alone is God.

So in this second section, we see the God-ness of God. The worship of and dependance on idols is a futile endeavor, and God offers convincing proof to Israel and the nations that he alone is able to deliver Israel—and he will surely do it.

READ 43:14-21

“Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: ‘For your sake I send to Babylon and bring them all down as fugitives, even the Chaldeans, in the ships in which they rejoice. I am the Lord, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King.’ Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, who brings forth chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick: ‘Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The wild beasts will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches, for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself that they might declare my praise.’”

This passage—and much of the second half of Isaiah—has both near and far reaching fulfillments.

In this section, God is predicting Israel’s release from Babylon before they are even taken into captivity and over a century in advance (538, 458, and 444 BC). But, he is also communicating that he is beginning something new in his redemptive program.

Notice what he says in verses 18-21 (READ).

God is doing more than just delivering Israel from bondage—which in and of itself was a miracle.

R.C. Sproul writes, “The near, more remote, and most remote prophecies merge together on the canvas. From Isaiah’s perspective, the restoration after the exile inaugurates the new age, and this first taste of salvation through God’s servant, Cyrus, coalesces with the greater salvation that the Christ, God’s Servant, will bring his people. Today, the elect have even more confidence in these words of prophecy because they have been fulfilled in Christ and are being fulfilled in His church (2 Peter 1:19). These chapters lay the foundation for Isaiah’s theme of a new exodus. Numerous passages in this section of Isaiah (40:3-11; 41:17-20; 42:14-17; 43:16-21; 44:1-5, 27; 48:20, 21; 49:8-12; 50:2; 51:9, 10; 52:11, 12; 55:12, 13) develop a paradigm to demonstrate that the exodus theme has become ‘eschatologized.’ That is, the exodus imagery has developed on the basis of God’s past action in delivering his people. Isaiah is teaching that the foundational salvific event in Israel’s history now becomes a paradigm for a new salvation event that will be far more significant than even the epochal deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt.” (And I would add, Babylon)

In other words, the Exodus from Egypt has become a picture of God’s salvation throughout the Scriptures, climaxing in the ultimate Exodus Jesus provided on the cross, and the final Exodus of Jesus’ restoration of all things.

And in some way this “exodus” that Israel will experience in her return from captivity marks a significant shift in God’s plan to save a people for himself through the person and work of his Messiah, Jesus Christ.

And I think this is how: The Lord giving Israel up to captivity is a consequence that he gave after giving them the Mosaic Law. If they did not keep their end of the covenant, they would be taken captive by a foreign nation. Israel has shown that she cannot keep the Law and, therefore, that the Law cannot save. So, the Lord’s giving her up to captivity signifies a shift away from the Old Covenant to something new: the New Covenant. And this New Covenant is not one of Law, but of grace. And, as we will see in a moment, Israel’s role in this New Covenant is that the Messiah will come from her offspring.

So, God is both preserving his people—refusing to break his promises—and kickstarting something new in his redemptive program through her. This is massive. And beautiful.

The movement from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant is beginning here in our text.

And this “new thing” or “ultimate exodus” that Jesus has now accomplished is miraculous. Notice the language in verses 19-20—which is repeated throughout Isaiah:

A way is made in the wilderness.

Rivers are made in the desert.

Wild beasts honor God.

Water is given by God in the wilderness.

Rivers are given by God in the desert.

God’s salvation is not mediocre or neutral, but magnificently against all odds.

Israel could never have imagined the beautiful reality that would “sprout” from her bondage and pain in the Babylonian captivity. Ultimately, God’s work in Christ is a miraculous work. A glorious work.

And this teaches us that God specializes in bringing beauty out of the most broken places. He loves to bring life out of death and light out of darkness—which is exactly what he is doing through Israel’s captivity. Why?

Because of verse 21 (READ).

God alone gets all the glory when we offer nothing to our salvation and he does all the work. We simply drink as his chosen people and declare his praise.

So, God was doing and has done something new through Israel’s captivity and preservation. And we ought to offer our praise to him for that.

READ 43:22-28

“‘Yet you did not call upon me, O Jacob; but you have been weary of me, O Israel! You have not brought me your sheep for burnt offerings, or honored me with your sacrifices. I have not burdened you with offerings, or wearied you with frankincense. You have not bought me sweet cane with money, or satisfied me with the fat of your sacrifices. But you have burdened me with your sins; you have wearied me with your iniquities. ‘I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins. Put me in remembrance; let us argue together; set forth your case, that you may be proved right. Your first father sinned, and your mediators transgressed against me. Therefore I will profane the princes of the sanctuary, and deliver Jacob to utter destruction and Israel to reviling.’”

The Lord now confronts Israel for the posture of her heart.

The ESV Study Bible comments on verse 22, “Israel practiced their worship with the unspoken intention of evading God, not meeting God. Their attitude in worship implied that God is a demanding bore.”

Israel’s worship was not from a place of love, but of obligation.

Kind of like a child begrudgingly obeying their parents instead of obeying out of love.

Or a husband giving flowers to his wife on their anniversary and writing a letter to her that says, “take these flowers as a token of my obligation to do something nice for you.”

The Lord does not want our worship of him to be cold or indifferent. He wants us to love him and worship him from a place of adoration.

It’s worth pointing out that the Christian life will likely have moments and seasons of dryness. Where coming to church, reading our bibles, singing in worship, praying, all seems like a chore. And when we experience these seasons, the best nourishment for our souls is the truth of the gospel.

That “God, God is he who blots out our transgressions—even our coldness of heart—and chooses not to remember our sins.” (v. 25) That Jesus was and is the only person who offered pure and whole-hearted devotion to the Father (he endured the cross for the joy that was set before him), and his doing so was for our salvation! And when we remember these truths—and ponder them for a long while, praying that the Holy Spirit would help us feel their significance—our hearts are warmed and our love is deepened for the God of our salvation.

We don’t have to just go through the motions—God himself doesn’t want us to. Our God desires our hearts, and is glad to deepen our love for him by his grace.

But Israel had become completely cold, keeping the Mosaic covenant with her hands but not her heart.

And God had become burdened by her sins and wearied with her iniquities.

(v. 26-28) He even invites Israel to make a case for herself, but the evidence makes it clear that even her first father had sinned against the Lord (likely either Abraham or Jacob). Israel had always been bent toward rebellion and a lack of trustful dependance on the Lord.

(v. 28) Therefore, the Lord will give Israel up. But, he will not abandon her.

READ 44:1-5

“‘But now hear, O Jacob my servant, Israel whom I have chosen! Thus says the Lord who made you, who formed you from the womb and will help you: Fear not, O Jacob my servant, Jeshurun whom I have chosen. For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants. They shall spring up among the grass like willows by flowing streams. This one will say, ‘I am the Lord’s,’ another will call on the name of Jacob, and another will write on his hand, ‘The Lord’s,’ and name himself by the name of Israel.’”

The “destruction” mentioned in 43:28 has left Israel like a “thirsty land” and “dry ground” (v.3), but the Lord is promising to quench their thirst with his grace. He is—once again—promising to not abandon his people. They are his chosen people! The people he had formed! He will not forsake them.

(v. 3) And notice that the Lord promises to pour his Spirit upon their offspring, and his blessing on their descendents.

What is remarkable is that we—belonging to Jesus through faith—are part of the realization of this promise:

Galatians 3:23–4:7 ESV

Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

God was preserving Israel by his grace because he was building a people through her offspring—who is foremost Christ—of both Jews and Gentiles.

And he is continuing to build his people even now! He has promised to complete what he has begun, and he will surely do it.

We have a God who is faithful to his promises and loves his people deeper than we could have ever imagined.