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# Isaiah

## Chapter 49

Introduction Chapter 1 Chapters 2 to 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapters 7 to 9 Chapters 9:8 to 12 Chapters 13 and 14 Chapters 15 to 18 Chapters 19 to 23 Chapter 24 Chapters 25 and 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapters 33 and 34 Chapter 35 Chapters 36 to 39 Chapter 40 Chapters 41 to 43 Chapters 44 and 45 Chapters 46 to 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Chapters 51 and 52 Chapter 53 Chapter 54 Chapters 55 to 57 Chapters 58 and 59 Chapter 60 Chapters 61 and 62 Chapter 63 Chapters 64 and 65 Chapter 66 | #### Messiah the true servant: God's glorious answer to His rejection The Messiah is brought in, for it is He who delivers. But it is a question apart, so to say. The subject of Christ, and of the people's guilt with respect to Him, begins with chapter 49, which, with the following to the end of chapter 57, forms a whole; and, if one may venture to say so, Christ takes the place of Israel as the true servant of God. As He declared. "I am the true vine." [1] This makes an apparent difficulty, but gives the true sense of chapter 49. Israel is the vessel of the glory of God on the earth, and the Spirit of prophecy in Israel calls on the isles of the Gentiles to hearken, as being thus chosen of Jehovah. "Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified" (v. 3). Then Christ, by this same prophetic Spirit, says, "then have I laboured in vain." For we know that Israel rejected Him. Verse 5 is the answer. He shall be glorious. It would be a light thing to restore the remnant of Israel. He shall be the salvation of Jehovah unto the ends of the earth. Here we find a principle that is applicable to the work of Christ, even in the days of the gospel. But for the fulfilment of the counsels of God the succeeding verses carry us on to the millennium. Verse 7, Christ is exalted. Verse 8, He is given for a covenant of the people (Israel) to secure the blessing of the land of Canaan, and the long desolate inheritance, and then the deliverance of the captives. At length God has comforted His people. Zion, apparently forsaken, must confess that Jehovah's faithfulness is greater than of a mother to her sucking child. Her destroyers are gone, her children flock in crowds to her and replenish her waste places, which regorge with an unlooked-for multitude before the eyes of the astonished mother, long time desolate. Kings shall be her nursing fathers, and shall bow down to her. And although she has been the captive of the mighty, she shall be delivered, and her oppressors trodden under foot. And all flesh shall know that Jehovah is her Saviour. This is the result in grace of the introduction of the true Servant. [1] So, I doubt not, in Matthew, "I have called my Son out of Egypt." Christ replaces the first Adam before God, though blessing in that new position many of his children. He takes the place of Israel also, though blessing the remnant and making it the nation. |

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With the prayerful desire that the Lord Jesus Christ will use this God-given ministry in this form for His glory and the blessing of many in these last days before His coming. © Les Hodgett .