Isaiah Chapter 43:1-7 A Commentary
(Vs.1) “But now, this is what the LORD says- He who created you, O Jacob, He who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. (Vs.2) “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.(Vs.3) “For I am the LORD , your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour; I give Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in your stead”(Vs.4) “Since you are precious and honoured in My sight, and because I love you, I will give men in exchange for you, and people in exchange for your life.”(Vs.5-6) “Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west. I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’ and to the south, ‘Do not hold them back.’ Bring My sons from afar and My daughters from the ends of the earth (Vs.7) “everyone who is called by My name, whom I created for My glory, whom I formed and made.”
Introduction:
The book of Isaiah was penned during a tumultuous period for the Israelites. They were facing the looming threat of Babylonian captivity, a time marked by despair, uncertainty, and fear. The Israelites were aware of their impending exile and were grappling with feelings of worthlessness and abandonment. Many undoubtedly were aware of the fact that judgement was pending because of their sin and rebellion against God and the neglect in obeying His Commandments.
Throughout the entire book we see God’s judgements for disobedience to His Word and blessing for obedience. We also see God’s eternal plan of salvation clearly revealed for Israel and for their spiritual and national restoration at the end of this age. Right in the middle of the Book we have Isaiah Chapter 53 clearly revealing in detail the salvation God would provide at the cross through His Son, a salvation not only for Israel, but for the whole Gentile world!
The broader literary purpose of this section of Isaiah highlights God’s unbreakable covenant relationship with His people Israel. Throughout the text, we see a balance between judgment and forgiveness, which is a significant element in prophetic literature. God’s impending judgment in response to Israel’s disobedience is contrasted with His promises of restoration and redemption.
In the previous chapter we have seen the dire consequences of disobedience to the LORD which hit Israel hard. The two tribes of Israel in the Southern Kingdom of Judah had witnessed what the Assyrians had done to the Northern kingdom in 722BC when the ten tribes of Israel by and large were taken into exile and Samaria the capital sacked.
The Southern kingdom was facing the same consequences because of their idolatry and all of the pagan practices that came with it. The Assyrians were known for their cruelty and the Babylonians were not much better.
The people of Israel had turned away from God, engaging in idol worship, and often sought help from foreign nations instead of relying on God. Their actions reflected a lack of faith and trust in the LORD.
Widespread injustices were prevalent, including oppression of the poor and vulnerable. The wealthy and powerful exploited the less fortunate, leading to societal corruption. The leaders failed to uphold justice, contributing to the spiritual and moral decay of the nation.
The Israelites performed meaningless sacrifices in the temple, lacking true devotion. Their worship became a mere formality, disconnected from genuine faith and obedience which are linked together and both necessary for salvation. This hypocrisy angered the LORD, as they neglected the core principles of love and justice.
The people ignored the warnings of the prophets God sent to them to turn them away from their wicked ways, including Isaiah. However, they persisted in their sinful ways, refusing to repent and return to the LORD.
This disobedience led to divine judgment and the eventual consequences of their actions which occurred in 586BC with the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple, and most of the Israelites who survived exiled to Babylon.
When God’s people backslide He always sends a warning before He sends judgement, which is His final act when there is no repentance but persistent and wilful sin and rebellion. He sent the prophets who gave His people the Law and the consequences of violating His statutes and commandments. The prophets also offered them His grace and mercy if they would repent by turning from their wicked ways.
After describing the consequences of past disobedience (42:18-25), in His wrath He also remembered His mercy (Habakkuk 3:2b). Hence we come to our text which clearly reveals this timeless and eternal truth where God’s loving faithfulness and devotion have joined together, and where His demand for righteousness and His kiss of peace embrace each other, which we see fully revealed in the cross of the Messiah our Lord Jesus (Psalm 85:9-10) (John 3:16) (2 Corinthians 5:19).
After God had reminded His people about the consequences of rejecting His Word He now prophesies their restoration at the end of this present age. The passage of scripture is prophetic in nature.
Exposition:
(Vs.1) “But now, this is what the LORD says- He who created you, O Jacob, He who formed you, O Israel:”
Through the prophet Isaiah the LORD reminds His people that it was He who created them and formed them as a unique people who were named through the patriarch Jacob after He had wrestled with the per-existent Messiah before His incarnation. God called Jacob Israel giving the Jewish people their name.
Through the patriarch Abraham God had created through the lineage of his decedents Isaac and Jacob and their offspring a unique nation that was to be free of idolatry that worshipped the one and only true God.
As God spoke concerning Abraham; “Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and through him all the nations of the earth will be blessed. For I have chosen him, so that he will command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, in order that the LORD may bring upon Abraham what He has promised” (Genesis 18:18-19). While Israel was created to be a blessing to the nations the ultimate and greatest blessing was that the Messiah, the Saviour of the world, would be one of Abraham’s decedents and He would be Jewish, because “salvation is from the Jews” (John 4:22).
No wonder Satan has tried to destroy the Jewish nation. At the cross the Messiah our Lord Jesus stripped Satan of his power to keep men and women, both Jew and Gentile from slavery to sin and an eternity in the lake of fire (Colossians 2:13-15) (Hebrews 2:14-15). Any Jew or Gentile that repents and believes in the Messiah as their saviour, lord will have their sins forgiven, be justified before God on the basis of the Messiah’s redeeming blood, and be saved (Romans 3:21-30).
Added to this, Satan knows that the Second Coming of the Messiah will be to rescue Israel and to rule as the King of the Jewish in the Millennial Messianic age to come and so in his warped and twisted mindset Satan is seeking to eliminate the Jewish people from the face of the earth. The Holocaust was an attempt to eradicate Israel and today it is no different as we see the nations turning against Israel in an increasing manner.
God created the nation of Israel and He will see to it that what He has created will last, and Israel as a nation is His covenant people, the everlasting new covenant sealed in the blood of Messiah at the cross guaranteeing their ultimate redemption from sin (Jeremiah 31:31) (Romans 11:25-27).
“An eternal salvation from their enemies and from the hands of all who hate them, to show mercy to Israel, to remember His holy covenant, the oath that He swore to their Father Abraham; to rescue them from the hands of their enemies enabling them to serve Him without fear in holiness and righteousness before Him all their days” (Luke 1:71-75).
This will be Israel’s ultimate experience in the Messianic Age to come when a Jew, our Lord and Saviour Jesus, the King of the Jews, sitting on David’s throne in Jerusalem will reign over all of the nations that will have survived his Second Coming (Luke 1:32-33) (Isaiah 9:6-7) (Isaiah 16:5). And then we read…
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are Mine.”
God always remembers His covenants. Through a blood covenant He promised Abraham that his decedents the Jewish people through the lineage of Isaac and Jacob to give them the Land of Israel to be for them “an everlasting possession” (Genesis 15: 12-19; 17:7-8) (Psalm 105:8-11). God also said He would make the New eternal Covenant with Israel through the blood of Messiah, a once and final covenant made with the House of Israel and with the House of Judah, not with a Gentile Church (Jeremiah 31:31). Gentile New Covenant believers are spiritually grafted into Israel and share in the blessings of Abraham (Romans Chapter 4).
As we are also told in the New Testament; “Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For the Messiah, our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed” (1 Corinthians 5:7). And again it is written; “In Him (The Messiah) we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His unmerited, unearned favour” (Ephesians 1:7).
Not only this, but just as a shepherd knows the name of every sheep in his care so the LORD knows the name of every true and faithful believer in both Testaments whom He has redeemed through the chief shepherd of their souls, the Lord Jesus.
As the good shepherd He summons His sheep to follow Him, declaring to them through the witness of the indwelling Holy Spirit, that they are His possession and sealed for the day of their redemption (John 10:1-16) (Romans 8:16) (Ephesians 1:13-14). He who gave Himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen (Galatians 1:4-5). Let’s continue…
(Vs.2) “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.”
If any nation was tested it was Israel. They had already passed through the deep waters of affliction and suffering, and swept along by the rivers of oppression and judgement and through the fire of affliction where God was refining them to be set apart for His exclusive use. God’s refining process still continues today.
As it is also written; “For You have tried us, O God; You have refined us as silver is refined. You brought us into the net; You laid an oppressive burden upon our loins. You made men ride over our heads; We went through fire and through water, Yet You brought us out into a place of abundance” (Psalm 66:10-12).
Whatever God does it is always for our spiritual wellbeing. Walking with our Triune God takes perseverance, trust and time and enduring His refining process, not to harm us, but to strengthen us in our trust in Him and in His wise and loving benevolence exercised towards all of His redeemed saints.
As the author of Hebrews writes; “Our fathers disciplined us for a short time as they thought best, but God disciplines us for our good, so that we may share in His holiness. No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields a harvest of righteousness and peace to those who have been trained by it. Therefore strengthen your limp hands and weak knees” (Hebrews 12:10-12).
God’s ultimate purpose in spiritually purifying us from the world, the flesh and the devil is that we might be conformed in our life to the image of God’s Son the Messiah our Lord Jesus, a spiritual work deep down on the inside of every spiritually reborn child of God which He has predestined for us from before the foundation of the world in eternity according to His foreknowledge of all things (Romans 8:28-30) (1 Peter 1-2).
When we submit our wills to Him as moment by moment walk by faith and in step with the Holy Spirit we will face trials and tests of every kind, persecution oppression, marginalisation, and times of spiritual assaults on our minds and emotions, however, the end result will be the blessings of God and that in abundance.
Does not the apostle James write; “Consider it wholly joyful, my brethren, whenever you are enveloped in or encounter trials of any sort or fall into various temptations. Be assured and understand that the trial and proving of your faith bring out endurance and steadfastness and patience. But let endurance and steadfastness and patience have full play and do a thorough work, so that you may be (people) perfectly and fully developed (with no defects), lacking in nothing” (James 1:2-4 AMP).
Surrendering to the will of God is not easy and it takes an action of the will, not primarily the emotions, but the surrender of the will accompanied by the grace of God and a desire to be changed. However once the will is surrendered to the LORD then through this surrender the Holy Spirit takes control and empowers us to prove God’s good, acceptable and prefect will (Romans 12:1-2).
Doing God’s will cuts right across our will and the conflict will be severe when the spiritual transaction is taking place deep within our soul. However, once we start to walk in His will it will prove to be for us the best and sweetest thing in the entire world!
Yes we will still pass through deep waters of affliction but God will be with us and when the swirling torrent of the raging river of trials, tests, afflictions and even persecution for righteousness sake seek to sweep us away they will not be successful. God’s sweeping river will enable us to swim against the tide and the undertow. Isaiah also wrote, “When the enemy shall come in, like a flood the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a battle standard against him” (Isaiah 59:19).
When we walk through the fire of persistent temptation or persecution and Satan’s hordes from hell are seeking to wear us down spiritually we will not be consumed by this spiritual conflagration. Spiritually we will not be burned and the flames of the fallen nature of the soul will not be set ablaze.
Many unsaved Jewish people today in Israel are aliens and strangers to their own covenants of promise, estranged from the Messiah, and not walking with the LORD. However, He is starting to arrange things in such a way that the time will come when they will have their backs against the wall with no way out, and in their desperation cry out to Him.
When this happens God will send back the Messiah our Lord Jesus and all of the Jews who are still alive in Israel and in every nation will see Him coming in the clouds of heaven, and in that day seeing His wounds all Israel will be saved! (Zechariah 12: 10-13:1) (Romans 11:25-27). For God’s gifts and His call are irrevocable (Romans 11:29). Let’s now continue…
(Vs.3-4) “For I am the LORD, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour;” “I give Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in your stead. Since you are precious and honoured in My sight, and because I love you, I will give men in exchange for you, and people in exchange for your life.””
God is absolutely sovereign in everything in the universe, on earth and under the earth and He can do all things and no purpose of His can be thwarted (Job 42:1-2). As our Triune God Himself has said also through Isaiah the prophet; “Remember what happened long ago, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me. I declare the end from the beginning, and ancient times from what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and all My good pleasure I will accomplish.’ I summon a bird of prey from the east, a man for My purpose from a far-off land. Truly I have spoken, and truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned it, and I will surely do it” (Isaiah 46:9-11). As the late David Wilkerson used to say; “God still has everything under control” and He does you know!
Through Isaiah God was showing His sovereign unearned unmerited favour to His people Israel. He was reminding them that He was their God and that He still desired a personal relationship with them even though they were for the most part spiritually backslidden.
He was reminding them in their backslidden state that He was their Holy one, being their one and only God, Holy in nature and their saviour, He was reminding them that they were to be Holy, set apart from the world with its passions and desires and idolatry, and to embrace Him once again as their saviour, not only from the Babylonians, but more so from their sins.
The sacrifices of bulls and goats covered temporarily for sin; however when they were offered up with faith in the heart and with a willingness to obey the LORD through that sacrifice, their sins were forgiven. However, the blood of bulls and goats did not have the power to deal with the inward power of sin (Hebrews 10:4). This would take the blood of the Passover Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world to deal with this inward problem of sin (John 1:29) (John 1:7-9) (Ephesians 1:7) (Hebrews 9:14).
While God shows no partiality in that He loves all men and women and does not want any to perish but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9), He does treat His redeemed children differently than those who are not His children. He has a special and unique relationship with those who have been born again by the Spirit and through His power adopted into the family of God as His sons and daughters (John 1:12) (Ephesians 1:5) (Ephesians 2:19) (Galatians 4:4-5).
One can liken it to a teacher in a class who is teaching his students including his own child. While he is treating them all equally he has a special relationship with his child that sets that child apart to him in a special way. That child belongs to him whereas the other children don’t.
When we repent and believe in the Son of God, the Messiah our Lord Jesus who shed His blood to atone for our sins, the power of God the Holy Spirit sets us apart to God the Father and adopted by Him into His eternal family. We have the inward spirit of adoption crying out Abba father (literally “daddy” the first word uttered by an infant) (Romans 8:15-16).
In the Messianic Kingdom to come after the close of this present age Israel as a redeemed sanctified nation will be the capital of the whole world. The nations will be subject to Israel because the government of the whole planet will be resting on the shoulders of the Messiah reigning from Jerusalem with every nations subject to Him (Genesis 49:10) (Isaiah 2:1-5) (Micah 4:1-5) (Isaiah 9:6-7) (Ezekiel 37: 15-28) (Zechariah 14:6-21). Now God has not finished with Israel. Let’s consider this…
(Vs.5-7) “Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west. I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’ and to the south, ‘Do not hold them back.’ Bring My sons from afar and My daughters from the ends of the earth “everyone who is called by My name, whom I created for My glory, whom I formed and made.”
Today with Antisemitism starting to spread like wildfire through the nations many Jews from the Gentile nations are coming home to Israel because of the rising hate against the Jews and many more will come to escape the rapid rise of antisemitism. Our Triune God in His covenant sovereign purposes for Israel, is that they will return to the Land of Israel, not primarily at first for a blessing but for the Time of Jacob’s Trouble.
While many Jewish people today in Israel and in the nations are coming to a saving faith in the Messiah our Lord Jesus more than at any other time in history since the first century, the Jews in Israel by and large are still aliens and strangers to their own covenants of promise.
For the most part the religious orthodox Jews as a united community are adamantly opposed to those who follow the Lord Jesus as their Messiah, Lord and saviour from sin in the same way the religious hierarchy persecuted Jewish believers in the Messiah in the first century when the apostles were alive and preaching the gospel of the kingdom.
The secular Jews in Israel, in their pursuit of modern day idolatry, being enslaved to the passions, the pleasures, the possessions of material wealth and living pagan lifestyles, being prisoners to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and to the price of life, have no time for religion and more so for the Messiah our Lord Jesus.
As for the religious orthodox Jews in Israel who reject the Messiah they are also lost by seeking to be acceptable to God through a works based righteousness based on trying to keep the Law of God which no man can keep anyway (Romans 3:19-20).
It is going to take the Time of Jacob’s Trouble to remedy the situation which will see two-thirds struck down and perish in the land, however, a third will be left in the land that God will bring through His refining process to save them, and they will call upon His name and He will answer them saying “They are My people” and they will respond “The LORD is our God” (Zechariah 13:8-9).
God will save this remnant out of the Time of the Big Trouble when the Messiah returns to judge the nations and to inaugurate His Messianic rule over the surviving nations (Jeremiah 30:1-10) (Zechariah 14:6-21) (Ezekiel 37:15-28) (Joel 3:17-21) (Isaiah 11:6-9).
We know another partial exile is coming (Zechariah 14:1-2), however, after the Messiah has come back and is reigning on earth as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and also as Israel’s rightful king, the Jews in the nations to which they have been exiled will come home to Israel. God will command it and they will return. He will gather them from the four corners of the earth. They will come home, having the revelation that the Lord Jesus is the Messiah and their saviour and their Passover Lamb sacrificed for their sins.
Our Triune God calls them His sons and daughters and every one of them will be called by His name as a faithful shepherd calls His own sheep by name, and brings them safely back into the fold of the sheep pen. Israel will inherit the whole land promised to the patriarchs of Israel Abraham Isaac and Jacob, and the borders will expand as the Jews return from afar, from the ends of the earth. Indeed our Triune God will say…
“Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west. I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’ and to the south, ‘Do not hold them back.’ Bring My sons from afar and My daughters from the ends of the earth, everyone who is called by My name, whom I created for My glory, whom I formed and made.”
Epilogue
Indeed the prophet Isaiah also writes; “In that day the Root of Jesse (the Messiah our Lord Jesus) will stand as a banner (rallying banner) for the peoples; the (surviving Gentile) nations will rally to him, and His resting place will be glorious.
In that day the LORD will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the surviving remnant of his people from Assyria, which today would be parts of northern Iraq, south-eastern Turkey, north-western Iran, and north-eastern Syria), from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt, from Cush primarily located in modern–day Sudan, from Elam which lies within Iran, from Babylonia which today is Iraq, from Hamath a city located in modern day Syria, and from the islands of the Mediterranean Sea located today off the coasts of Southern Europe, Western Asia, and Northern Africa.
The islands of the Sea would include Sicily, Corsica, Crete, and the Balearic Islands, among many others. God will raise a banner for the nations (the Messiah Himself) and gather the exiles of Israel; He will assemble the scattered people of Judah from the four corners of the earth and bring them home to Israel (Isaiah 11:10-12).
Israel as yet is to “possess their possession” and “possess the gates of their enemies” (Obadiah 1:17) (Genesis 22:17). As yet they do not possess all of the territory the LORD gave to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and to their decedents the Jewish nation. When they return the Tribes of Israel will be reunited as one people under their Messiah King (Ezekiel 37:15-28).
They will take complete possession of Gaza; plunder the Arab nations that have afflicted them. They will take full possession of Northern, Central and Southern Jordan including Judea and Samaria (the West Bank). God Himself will completely dry up the gulf of the Egyptian Sea; with a scorching wind that will sweep his hand over the Euphrates River breaking it up into seven streams so that men can cross over them by walking. In that day there will be a highway for the remnant of God’s people that had been left in Iraq as there was a highway for the remnant of God’s people when they came out of Egypt (Isaiah 11:13-16).
In that day we are also told in God’s Word; “Thus says the LORD of hosts: In those days ten men from the nations of every tongue shall take hold of the robe of a Jew, saying, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you’” (Zechariah 8:23). Selah.
