Isaiah 49:1-7 Commentary

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“Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists in two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.”  Knowledge of God, of course, sounds noble enough but that knowledge of ourselves? Does it strike you as a little pop-psychology?  Kind-of self-help-y and postmodern?  Where does that quotation come from anyway?

The quote is the opening line of John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion.  (Who knew that John Calvin, the 16th century Protestant Reformer, was all into feelings and self-awareness?!) Regardless of what you think of Calvin or Calvinism, the quotation gives us a good lens to use as we engage this text from Isaiah.

Commentary:

Knowledge of Ourselves

The text begins with the prophet, Isaiah, confidently asserting his purpose among the people.  He refers to his mouth as a sharp sword, a strange image in this portion of the text, largely written as consolation and comfort to the exiled people of Israel.  Robert Alter surmises, “Perhaps, speaking in a situation of painful political powerlessness, he wants to assert that his poetry has power, even the power to devastate those who would resist it.”  Establishing himself in the first two verses, though, the prophet turns toward the people in verse three.

“You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will display my splendor.”  Isaiah’s prophecy is not general or universal it is for, on behalf of and, even, embedded in the whole people of God.  In the immediate context, this refers to the people who used to live in the Promised Land but are now wasting away as exiles in Babylon.  An expanded, New Testament understanding of the address helps us to understand that the promise moves beyond the nation of Israel to the people of Israel, that remnant of folks who banded together, not based on nationality or geography but based on covenant and faithfulness.

Being the chosen recipients of God’s covenant, it must have been hard to hear verse four in which Isaiah puts words in the people’s mouths: “I have labored to no purpose; I have spent my strength in vain and for nothing.”  That doesn’t quite match the promise of displayed splendor in the verse before, does it?

It’s as though Isaiah is coaching a losing team instead of a winning one!  In the TV series, Friday Night Lights, the team all put their hands in the huddle and shout: “Clear eyes. Full hearts. Can’t lose.” That’s motivating.  Here Isaiah is calling the team into a huddle. Hands in. “No purpose. In vain. For nothing.”

But at least Isaiah is telling the truth. Speaking out loud what the people already know and feel. God’s people are in exile. Feeling pretty defeated.  All they want is to file into the locker room at the end of the game. Away from their punishing and taunting rivals to lick their wounds.

Which is why the promise of God’s restoration of Israel in verse 5 hits its target perfectly. God will, again, gather Israel to God and to one another.  “For I am honored in the eyes of the Lord and my God has been my strength.” It would have, likely, suited Israel just fine if the prophecy ended there.  But it doesn’t and so these exiled and abused people of God hear these words from verse 6, “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. It will also make you a light for the Gentles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.”  Can you imagine the faithful believer, sitting in Babylonian prison, hearing these words? Or the woman on hands and knees scrubbing the courtyard of her Babylonian captors?

You will be redeemed. And so will they.

The outcry must have been deafening: What do you mean it is too small a thing to be God’s people again?  It’s all we want! We don’t want your salvation going to the ends of the earth.  We’ve been living, against our wills, at the ends of the earth, and—as far as we can tell—there’s really not much worth saving here.  It’s not too small a thing! It’s just the perfect size for us. And here, at least, I find myself in the story. Eager for God’s redemption for me.  Not so keen on it for my enemies. Knowledge of self can be deeply uncomfortable, it turns out.

Knowledge of God

Since the institution of God’s particular relationship with Israel, in Genesis 12, the promise has always been: “Yes, I will make you a great nation. Yes, I will bless you and make your name great. But I can’t stop there.” God’s plan, all along, has included these words, “And all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

This promise is simply reiterated—albeit, against a backdrop of oppression and fear of the other—in Isaiah’s prophecy, presented in this Lectionary text.  But the promise is enacted by Jesus Christ, one called before his birth and sent, like the prophet Isaiah, to Israel and also to the whole world. Jesus Christ enacts this promise by entering (willingly!) into exile in a suffering, broken world, experiencing all the same disappointments that face us here.  Jesus Christ enacts this promise of salvation to the ends of the earth by stretching wide his arms on the cross, suffering with us and suffering for us, going all the way to death and rising in newness of life.  Jesus Christ enacts this promise by sending the Holy Spirit, who daily equips God’s people to imagine a world in which it is “too small a thing” to believe that God is only for us. Only for those like us. Only for those we like.  It is “too small a thing” to desire God to love anything less than “the whole world.” And so the Spirit sends us, not to bring Christ to the world but in the sure and certain hope that Christ is already present in every square inch of our neighborhood, our workplace, our nation and our world.  The Spirit sends us in expectation of finding Jesus Christ already at work in the world God so loves so that we might join Him there.