Isaiah 49

Restoration of Israel (49:8–26)

8–13 In these verses the Lord continues speaking to His servant. He promises to be with His servant, to help him in the day of salvation, the day of redemption, when the servant will offer up his own life to atone for the sins of the world. Through the servant’s death, God will make [him] to be a covenant for the people (verse 8), a new covenant sealed by the servant’s own blood (see Isaiah 42:5–7 and comment). The servant will then restore the land, restore God’s true people, the Israel of God (Galatians 6:16). He will say to the captives of Satan: “Be free!” (verse 9).

In verses 9–13, the Lord pictures the Messiah leading His people to the promised land like a shepherd leading his sheep (Psalm 23:1–6). His people will be gathered from afar—even from Aswan in southern Egypt.

14–18 In verse 14, Zion (Jerusalem personified) speaks up and says: “The LORD has forsaken me.” Here Isaiah’s vision relates primarily to his own historical situation: Jerusalem is soon to be destroyed and its people sent into exile.

But the Lord (through Isaiah) assures His people that He has not forsaken them—any more than a mother would forsake her child. The Lord says that Zion’s sons will hasten back after the Exile and the destroying nation (Babylon) will soon depart (verse 17). The Lord pictures Zion as a mother “wearing” her children as a bride wears her ornaments (verse 18). Though these verses refer primarily to the Jerusalem of Isaiah’s day, they also apply to the new Jerusalem, the universal Church of Jesus Christ (Revelation 21:2).

19–21 The Lord continues His words of comfort to Zion (Jerusalem). He says that when all of Jerusalem’s faithful people return, including their children born during [their] bereavement (exile), there will be so many of them that Jerusalem will be too small to accommodate them all (verse 20).

22–23 Here the Lord speaks about the restored Israel in the Messianic age, when He will beckon to the Gentiles to take part in establishing the Messianic kingdom. The Gentiles will help bring back the scattered Israelites; the Gentile kings and queens will bow down before God’s people, just as they will bow down before the Messiah Himself (verse 7).

24–26 In verse 24, Isaiah asks the rhetorical question: Will all this be possible? Can captives be rescued from fierce warriors? He is thinking here about how the exiles will be rescued from the Babylonians.

The Lord assures Isaiah that the exiles will be rescued and that He will continue to contend against the enemies of His people, just as He has done in the past. Indeed, Israel’s enemies will be so overcome by hunger and thirst that they will eat each other’s flesh and drink each other’s blood¹⁸⁹ (verse 26).