ISAIAH 40–55
This begins the second part of Isaiah. It deals with the Babylonian period where there is hope for troubled times. The exiles are promised their return to Judaea, the southern part of Israel.
Chapters 40-48 contain one of most powerful arguments for the existence of God. Through prophecies uttered by His servants hundreds of years before they are fulfilled, we find evidence that God exists, and that He is the God of Israel!
ISAIAH 40: JOYFUL PROSPECT AND REPROOF FOR DESPONDENCIES
This chapter begins a new theme in Isaiah. Chapter 40 serves as a prologue offering comfort and assurance, not only in view of the coming deliverance (ultimately fulfilled with the coming of Christ, 40:3-5), but in light of the incomparable greatness of God, who supports and strengthens all who place their trust in Him.
Isaiah 40:31 is a familiar scripture that people quote often. It is assurance for those who "wait upon the Lord."
ISAIAH 41: PREDICTION OF CYRUS' REIGN
God’s greatness is illustrated by His challenge to the nations. He challenges those who trust in idols to do as He did in announcing His plans and bringing them to pass. He also challenges Israel to not fear, for He will not forsake them.
ISAIAH 42: CHRIST, SERVANT OF JEHOVAH
Chapters 42-43 describe God’s care for Israel, especially through His coming Servant (Christ, 42:1-4), and His superiority over the nations including Babylon.
v.1 Prediction of Jesus Christ and His gospel coming to the Gentiles.
v.15-16 The Lord will make the earth waste during the tribulation period, but then He will begin His restoring work.
v.21-25 The Jews were driven out of the land because of their rejection of the Messiah, yet they did not realize that this was the reason.
ISAIAH 43: ISRAEL TO BE REDEEMED AND RESTORED
God’s coming judgment on Babylon and His plans for Israel are revealed. The idols of Babylon are nothing, and certainly unable to do as God has done in announcing His plans beforehand and then bringing them to pass. God’s judgment will humiliate Babylon, and then He will redeem Israel, having refined her for His glory.
ISAIAH 44: THE PROMISE OF THE SPIRIT
Chapters 44-45 reassure the people of Israel as God’s chosen, as the Lord promises to deliver them through Cyrus of Persia. Such deliverance will cause many others to turn to God.
v.4-5 The Lord foretells of a revival among the young.
v.6 The Father and the Son.
v.9-13 Various methods and types of idols the people had made.
v.16-17 The lack of logic and inconsistency of man in trying to create his own god.
v.18 They have rebelled so much against God that He allows their eyes to be shut (Jn. 12:39-40).
ISAIAH 45: PROOF OF GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY
v.2-4 The Lord predicts Cyrus' invasion 190 years before the event takes place Cyrus gave the decree for the rebuilding of Jerusalem after Israel's Babylonian captivity.
v.7 Hebrew word translated "evil" here means "sorrow, wretchedness, calamity, adversity or affliction."
v.9 To strive with God, a man must have the wrong concept of God. To strive with Him is the height of folly, as fighting Him is fighting your own good (Jer. 29:32). We are as clay in God's hands and can only discover the potter's plan as we yield ourselves to Him.
v.13 God formed Cyrus for the purpose of setting the people of Israel free to rebuild Jerusalem.
v.17 God will never cast off the nation Israel, but has promised to keep them.
v.20-23 God has revealed and declared himself in the Bible. We can make our own picture of God with our own ideas, but the truth is seen as He has shown us in His Word.
ISAIAH 46: POWER OF GOD AND POWERLESSNESS OF IDOLS
v.1-2 Their false gods became a burden even to the beasts that had to carry them.
v.3-4 The true and living God, rather than having to be carried and supported by man, carries them Himself.
v.6-7 They worship a god that is of no help to them. People today may not acknowledge the true and living God, yet they do worship their own idols of power, intellect, wealth, pleasure, etc.
v.12-13 God promises His righteousness placed in Zion.
ISAIAH 47: JUDGMENT UPON BABYLON
v.3 He will not meet Babylon as a man but as God in judgment.
v.4-10 God speaks against Babylon for her horrible treatment of God's people (Mt. 25:35-40).
v.7-8 The Babylonians' attitude of themselves was that they would reign forever. Isaiah predicts their destruction, as told in Daniel 5:17-31.
v.14-15 All the wise men and astrologers will not even be able to save themselves, much less anyone else.
ISAIAH 48: ISRAEL REMINDED OF GOD'S PROMISES
v.1 The name "Israel" means "governed by God." They call themselves after God, but do not live by Him.
v.8-9 God knew they would be stiff-necked and hard-headed, but because of His mercy He did not cut them off.
v.10 Affliction would be their refining process.
ISAIAH 49: ISRAEL'S COMING REDEEMER
v.1 7 Descriptions of Jesus Christ (Revelation 2:16, 19:15).
v.5 The purpose of Jesus Christ was to bring Israel back to God.
v.6 Jesus, rejected by the Jews, became a light to the Gentiles.
v.7 The gospel will permeate many nations.
v.12-13 God will bring His people together again.
v.15 God declares that He will not forget Israel.
v.20-21 They will come into the land and prosper so that it will be too small for them.
v.22-23 The kings of the earth shall pay homage year by year.
v.25 If one fights against Israel, he fights against the Lord.
ISAIAH 50: THE HUMILIATION OF THE HOLY ONE
v.1 The nation was "put away" from God by their sins. They turned from God. He did not sell them; they sold themselves.
v.4-6 Prophecy regarding Jesus Christ. Jesus here is speaking as the obedient servant of the Father. Jesus willingly submitted Himself to the Father's will. A willing servant is a bondslave.
v.6 Jesus was scourged by the Roman government. Spitting was a sign in that culture of ultimate disdain and disgust (Mt. 27:26, 30).
v.11 Description of a pagan ritual that Israel practiced with fire. The Lord promises that those who took part in it shall "lie down in sorrow."
ISAIAH 51: GOD'S REMNANT EXHORTED
v.3 God speaks of a future day of restoration for the nation Israel.
v.4 The Lord will come and reign in righteousness.
v.7-8 The righteous will be preserved and endure, but the wicked shall perish.
v.9-10 Response of the people to God. They wonder where God has been, and recall their past and how God had helped them.
v.11 The Lord will set up His kingdom on earth and Israel will recognize Him.
v.14-15 God declares that Israel is His people and He is the one who keeps them. They are the ones who have slept.
v.22-23 The day of their trouble will be over and there will be a glorious reuniting of God and His people. The Lord will judge those who have afflicted Israel. The reason for the severity of Israel's judgment is that they failed the responsibility God had given them.
ISAIAH 52: JERUSALEM IN THE KINGDOM AGE
v.3 Man would not be redeemed with money.
v.6 When Jesus came to His own they did not recognize Him, but a time is coming when they will.
v.11 Call of separation from the world to God.
v.13-15 Description of Jesus Christ.
ISAIAH 53: VICARIOUS SACRIFICE OF CHRIST, JEHOVAH'S SERVANT
v.2 We will not be attracted to Jesus by His physical beauty. Each of us can identify with Jesus. It is the love and spiritual beauty we will be attracted to, not the physical (Rev.5:4-6, 1:7).
v.5 The Jews should not be held responsible for the death of Jesus Christ as has been the Church's pattern historically. We are all equally responsible.
v.6 God forsook His Son when our sin was placed upon Him.
v.10-11 Christ became the sin offering for us according to God's will because He loved us. In seeing us in fellowship with God, Jesus was satisfied. Through Jesus, we are justified.
v.12 To reject Jesus after seeing He has fulfilled these things is to sin against the truth.
ISAIAH 54: ISRAEL RESTORED AS JEHOVAH'S WIFE
v.1-2 The Lord will enlarge the nation as He receives them again and places His blessings on them.
v.4 Israel as an adulterous wife had forsaken the Lord.
v.7-8 The great mercies of God.
v.17 Our righteousness comes not of ourselves or our works but by God's grace alone.
ISAIAH 55: SALVATION THROUGH GOD'S GRACE
v.1 God detests commercialism and those who profiteer or exploit from the poor. In the Kingdom Age God will bless the earth to provide abundantly for everyone.
v.3 Christ will come and sit upon the throne of David.
v.8 Many times we don't understand why God does the things He does. But the difference between our ways and thoughts and God's is that He knows the end from the beginning. Therefore, He does not have to wonder whether what He has done is right.
v.9 Man's folly is that he becomes angry with God, because God has done something in a way that he doesn't agree with. If we insist on our own way we are exalting our knowledge above God's, making us supreme instead of God.
v.10-11 God uses a common thing to illustrate His Word. As rain waters the earth to spark life, so our lives by His Word are brought to life. The Word comes to our spirit and brings all of God's potential into our lives. The first effect of the Word is what it does for us personally. The second effect is what it does through us for others.
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