Untitled Sermon (2)

Isaiah 48:16 KJV 1900

Come ye near unto me, hear ye this; I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; From the time that it was, there am I: And now the Lord God, and his Spirit, hath sent me.

Lord God, and his Spirit, hath sent me The Servant, Jesus is talking! Echoes of the Trinity.

EBC: "Finally (v. 16) another speaker mysteriously enters the prophecy. This verse has a number of features that have mystified commentators, who have been puzzled particularly by its final couplet. Young, Kidner, and other conservative commentators have argued that the new speaker introduced here (or in the whole verse) is in fact God’s Servant, the Servant of the songs. He is clearly not simply the Lord, and the phrase "Sovereign LORD" recurs in Is 50:4-5, Is 50:7, , in the context of the third Servant Song. Unlike the first and fourth songs, where it is God who speaks about him, here, as in the second and third, he himself speaks. Perhaps he is introduced here because Cyrus’s work is in fact simply a type of harbinger of the much greater deliverance he would bring to God’s people (see esp. the comment at Is 53:1)." (EBC)

BKC: "Suggestions on who is speaking in the second part of verse 16, beginning with the words And now, include Cyrus, Israel, Isaiah, and the Messiah. Probably the Messiah, God’s Servant, is intended because of His association (as in Is 42:1); also note Is 11:1-2 with the Spirit." (BKC)

NIVSBN at : "There are four "servant songs" in which the servant is the Messiah: Is 42:1-4 (or 42:1-7 or 42:1-9); Is 49:1-6 (or 49:1-7 or 49:1-13); Is 50:4-9 (or 50:4-11); Is 52:13-53:12. He is "Israel" in its ideal form (Is 49:3). The nation was to be a kingdom of priests (Ex 19:6), but the Messiah would be the high priest who would atone for the sins of the world (Is 53:4-12). Cyrus was introduced in Is 41 as a deliverer from Babylon, but the servant would deliver the world from the prison of sin (see Is 41:7)." (NIVSBN at )