ISAIAH CHAPTER 41

ISRAEL OVERCOMES FEAR AND ANXIETY

 

Fear is a universal emotion. Everyone experiences it at one time or another, in one form or another. Some people live in a constant state of fear, often referred to as anxiety or worry. Others experience fear or terror in reaction to a crisis or a catastrophe, or some other real life type of situation. In the next four chapters of Isaiah we will see the phrase, “Fear not!” used seven times,[fn] and God says, “Fear not!” to us today. It is interesting to note in Scripture that God does not expect us to blindly give up our fears. Whenever He says, “fear not,” He gives a reason why we do not have to fear. I encourage you to take special note of that as we proceed through these chapters.

The stage for chapter 41 is set approximately two hundred years in the future from the time Isaiah is actually writing these verses, as a small remnant of Jews are about to start the long journey back to Jerusalem. As the Jewish remnant would face the challenge of the long journey home from Babylon and the difficult task of rebuilding Jerusalem, which had been destroyed by the Babylonian army seventy years earlier, they would be able to think of many reasons to be afraid. But there was one big reason not to be afraid: God would be with them and would lead them home.

God speaks to these fears in order to calm them by assuring them that He is going before them and working on their behalf. God tells them that He has three servants He will use who will accomplish His will for their safe return: Cyrus, king of Persia (41:1–7); the nation of Israel (Isaiah 40:8–29; 43:1–44:27); and the Messiah (42:1–25).

Isaiah 41:1-7 NAS:
1 “Coastlands, listen to Me in silence, And let the peoples gain new strength; Let them come forward, then let them speak; Let us come together for judgment.
2 “Who has aroused one from the east Whom He calls in righteousness to His feet? He delivers up nations before him And subdues kings. He makes them like dust with his sword, As the wind-driven chaff with his bow.
3 “He pursues them, passing on in safety, By a way he had not been traversing with his feet.
4 “Who has performed and accomplished it, Calling forth the generations from the beginning? ‘I, the Lord, am 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 have come.
6 Each one helps his neighbor And says to his brother, “Be strong!”
7 So the craftsman encourages the smelter, And he who smooths metal with the hammer encourages him who beats the anvil, Saying of the soldering, “It is good”; And he fastens it with nails, So that it will not totter.

The call for silence opens the imaginary proceedings of a court. God convenes the court and asks the nations to present their case against Him, if they can. At least seventeen times in his prophecy, Isaiah writes about “the islands” (KJV) or “the coastlands” (NAS), referring to the most distant places in the world from the holy land of Israel.[fn] Together the islands and nations suggest all the world’s population. In suggesting that they meet together, God wasn’t asking that they negotiate; instead He was asking that they come together and realize the truth of His words.[fn] In verse 21 God tells the nations to present their case. The Lord confronted the nations and the islands face to face in judgment.

In verse 2, “the one from the east” is referring to Cyrus the king of Persia. We will be learning more about him in future chapters. God used Cyrus to deliver the Jews from the Babylonian captivity. Isaiah called Cyrus of Persia by name over a century before he was born (590?-529 BC); and while Isaiah never uses the term, “God’s servant,” to describe Cyrus, Cyrus did serve the Lord by fulfilling God’s will here on earth for the nation of Israel. Cyrus is summoned in “righteousness” for God’s purpose of judgment on Babylon and the deliverance of His captive people, Israel. God called Cyrus to serve Him. He called Cyrus to follow at his heels, that is, “at His feet,” in verse 2. God handed the nations over to Cyrus and helped him conquer them (Isaiah 45:1-4). Cyrus would carry out God’s righteous plan. He would fulfill God’s will even if he was unaware of what he was actually doing. The Babylonians were blown away like chaff and dust because in actuality God was leading the army of Cyrus. God makes it clear that He is the One who brings such events to pass.

As Cyrus moved across the territory east and north of the holy land (Isaiah 41:25), the nations were afraid and turned to their idols or false gods for help. With a touch of satire (humorous ridicule), Isaiah describes various workmen helping each other manufacture a god who cannot help them! After all, when the God of Heaven is in charge of the battle, how can men or gods of metal or stone possibly oppose Him?

Cyrus may have thought that he was in charge, but in reality he was doing the will of God (Isaiah 44:28). By defeating Babylon, Cyrus made it possible for the Jewish captives to be released and allowed to return to their land to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple (Ezra 1:1–4).  Sometimes we forget that God can use even unbelieving world leaders to accomplish His will for the good of His people. God raised up Pharaoh in Egypt when Israel was held captive there so that He might demonstrate His power (Romans 9:17). He used Herod and Pontius Pilate to accomplish His plan in the crucifixion of Christ (Acts 4:24–28).  Proverbs 21:1 GNB[fn] sums it up so well:

1 The Lord controls the mind of a king as easily as he directs the course of a stream.

Isaiah 41:8-10 NAS:
8 “But you, Israel, My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, Descendant of Abraham My friend,
9 You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, And called from its remotest parts And said to you, ‘You are My servant, I have chosen you and not rejected you.
10 ‘Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’

God chose Israel, also called Jacob and Abraham’s descendants, to be His servants (43:10) and to do His will.

Unfortunately Israel often failed to be a faithful servant and as God had warned them when He gave them His Law, disobedience would result in punishment. The servant is the nation of Israel, as opposed to the unbelieving Gentiles. They are descendants of Abraham, God’s friend, and they are therefore heirs of the covenant promises (Genesis 12:1-3). As an immigrant from Ur in Sumeria, Abraham came from the “ends of the earth.”  So were these captive exiles to be gathered back from Babylonia in 537 B.C.; even though no exiled nation had ever before in history been brought back to start life anew in their ancestral homeland.

Also, in the last days, God will bring His people back to Israel from her worldwide dispersion, just as He once brought them back from Egypt during the exodus and from Babylon after the exile, because Israel is God’s chosen nation. Even though Israel was exiled because of sin and unbelief, she was not rejected by God. The Lord remains their God (Isaiah 43:3) so He will continue to be with them (43:5) and strengthen (40:31), help ( 41:13-14), and provide for them.

In spite of their past rebellion, Israel was not rejected by God. The Jewish captives did not need to fear either Cyrus or Babylon, because Cyrus was working for God and would eliminate Babylon from the picture altogether. We can sense the love of God for His people in these verses and His desire to encourage them to trust Him for the future.[fn]

Then in verse 10 we have one of God’s wonderful promises to His people of all times: “Do not fear.” Why? “For I am with you.”  “Do not anxiously look about you.”  Why? “For I am your God.” Therefore don’t look around at your situation, but look up, up to the God who can control your circumstances. Fix your gaze on Him because if you know Him as your Savior, He holds you in the palm of His hand.

Isaiah 41:11-16 NAS:
11 “Behold, all those who are angered at you will be shamed and dishonored; Those who contend with you will be as nothing and will perish.
12 “You will seek those who quarrel with you, but will not find them, Those who war with you will be as nothing and non-existent.
13 “For I am the Lord your God, who upholds your right hand, Who says to you, ‘Do not fear, I will help you.’
14 “Do not fear, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel; I will help you,” declares the Lord, “and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.
15 “Behold, I have made you a new, sharp threshing sledge with double edges; You will thresh the mountains and pulverize them, And will make the hills like chaff.
16 “You will winnow them, and the wind will carry them away, And the storm will scatter them; But you will rejoice in the Lord, You will glory in the Holy One of Israel.

God goes on to be more specific about why the people should not fear. God is going to destroy their enemies. In verse 13 He reiterates His instruction not to fear and tells them that not only does God hold them in His right hand, but also He is going to strengthen their right hand. They do not have to be afraid because God is going to help them.

With God’s help Israel’s enemies will be defeated. When the word “worm” is used in reference to Israel, God is referring to the contempt that the ungodly nations have of Israel. The same term is used of the Messiah (Jesus) on the cross in Psalm 22:6. Just as God purchased His people from the bondage of Egypt by the blood of the Passover Lamb, He will do the same thing from their exile here in Babylon by sacrificing the nations of Egypt, Cush, and Seba (Isaiah 43), and from the worldwide exile in the end times by the blood of the true Lamb, Jesus Christ, when they turn to Him in faith (Zechariah 12:10-13:1). The mountains and hills in verses 15 and 16 could also be figurative representations of foreign nations, whom Israel will grind into nothingness just before Jesus returns to set up His kingdom on earth.

Isaiah 41:17-20 NAS:
17 “The afflicted and needy are seeking water, but there is none, And their tongue is parched with thirst; I, the Lord, will answer them Myself, As the God of Israel I will not forsake them.
18 “I will open rivers on the bare heights And springs in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water And the dry land fountains of water.
19 “I will put the cedar in the wilderness, The acacia and the myrtle and the olive tree; I will place the juniper in the desert Together with the box tree and the cypress,
20 That they may see and recognize, And consider and gain insight as well, That the hand of the Lord has done this, And the Holy One of Israel has created it.

From the pictures of a servant and a worm, Isaiah turned to the picture of a desert becoming a garden. The image reminds us of Israel’s wanderings in the wilderness and God’s provision for their every need. Water and trees are important possessions in the East, and God will supply both to His people. Certainly Isaiah was also looking beyond the return from Babylon to the future kingdom when “the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the rose” (Isaiah 35:1).[fn]

Isaiah 41:21-29 NAS:
21 “Present your case,” the Lord says. “Bring forward your strong arguments,” The King of Jacob says.
22 Let them bring forth and declare to us what is going to take place; As for the former events, declare what they were, That we may consider them and know their outcome. Or announce to us what is coming;
23 Declare the things that are going to come afterward, That we may know that you are gods; Indeed, do good or evil, that we may anxiously look about us and fear together.
24 Behold, you are of no account, And your work amounts to nothing; He who chooses you is an abomination.
25 “I have aroused one from the north, and he has come; From the rising of the sun he will call on My name; And he will come upon rulers as upon mortar, Even as the potter treads clay.”
26 Who has declared this from the beginning, that we might know? Or from former times, that we may say, “He is right!”? Surely there was no one who declared, Surely there was no one who proclaimed, Surely there was no one who heard your words.
27 “Formerly I said to Zion, ‘Behold, here they are.’ And to Jerusalem, ‘I will give a messenger of good news.’
28 “But when I look, there is no one, And there is no counselor among them Who, if I ask, can give an answer.
29 “Behold, all of them are false; Their works are worthless, Their molten images are wind and emptiness.

The final picture in this chapter is that of the courtroom. God begins in verse 21 by insisting: “Present your case!” God challenged the idols of the nations to prove that they were really gods-- by predicting future events. Did any of their predictions come true? What have they predicted about the future? Did they announce that Cyrus would appear on the scene or that Jerusalem would be restored? Not only were the idols unable to make any valid predictions, but they were not even able to speak. The judgment of the court was correct: All of them are false. Their deeds amount to nothing. Their images are but wind and confusion.

The idols were not what humans claimed them to be because they could not predict the future, nor could they judge or deliver people. They were useless (Isaiah 44:9; Psalm 115:2-8; 1 Corinthians 8:4). Cyrus, the king of Persia, a land east of Babylon, approached Babylon from the north according to verse 25, where he had conquered Media before coming to Babylon. And there was no one who had predicted these future events as God had. Because these idols, these false gods, were helpless in predicting the future and there was no one among these nations that could counsel the people about such things, these false gods were useless and they are still useless today.

And this is just another piece of evidence about why God’s people do not have to fear. They know the one and only God, the One who silences all other voices and who is the true counselor.

Isaiah

John

Romans

1 Peter


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